


Way Back Home

by MiniInfinity



Series: "Love Stuck" Universe [2]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Parents, Angst, Domestic, Established Relationship, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Long-Distance Relationship, Multi, Romance, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:22:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 52,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22324018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiniInfinity/pseuds/MiniInfinity
Summary: Wonwoo thinks it'll be a long way back home but with Mingyu and Seoyeon, he would rather see piles of plane tickets stamped for Seoul and New York City to dwindle down because they might not need them anymore. It will be a long way back home, but at least it will mean expiring Mingyu's ringtone for video calls unfamiliar at his ears as their days go by. It will mean bidding Seoyeon goodbye at the doors when he drops her off to school. It will mean being with the two people he calls home for the rest of his life.In other words, the epilogue chapters to"Love Stuck."
Relationships: Jeon Wonwoo/Kim Mingyu
Series: "Love Stuck" Universe [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1445062
Comments: 30
Kudos: 78





	1. 2034

**Author's Note:**

> tbh i thought...the fic would be done...but...i was asked...about future chapters...at the end...of the fic...and i can't let go of these three
> 
> the title is from the song ["way back home" by shaun](https://open.spotify.com/track/3NxuezMdSLgt4OwHzBoUhL?si=ChQzygAGRh-onWY4223LKQ) and a line from the song ["shoebox" by epik high ft. myk](https://open.spotify.com/track/5wYAfjPChvnZQJVRzbCWv4?si=82OVmF47Sn2vI08xvhw2sg). unlike the actual fic, each chapter will be titled with a year and given a summary. but as always, warnings will be given beforehand in the notes or in the tags as this progresses. i'll probably jump _a little_ faster in this fic just because i think the slow burn in the actual fic was just kind of aching sdfj
> 
> i also added ["new york" by bol4, wh3n](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vv8XQVAv-0) to the [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5ml8vMQhfAtH1aEA6UrjqV?si=8JTcvLFbQZ6ya280UXcZcw)! i linked the mv because it's so pretty and very fitting :((

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Mingyu and Seoyeon return to Seoul, Wonwoo wanders through remnants of their trip here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello!! it's been so long. mostly because i had to emotionally prepare myself to plan and write this. if i waited one more day, i would have posted it exactly two years after i first posted the fic but i was too eager to wait dslkjd
> 
> but as always, some **warnings:** mention of a character death; it's a minor character, though >< and as usual, my writing style spiraled downhill somewhere but life be like that

The winter chill at his bones leaves at the front door, lingering white dusting off to the doormat and melting into the crunch of his shoes inside. He unwinds the day off his shoulders with the damp coat into the laundry basket and his laptop charging at his desk. He digs through drawers and his closet for one of Mingyu's warmer sweatshirts that stayed since Mingyu and Seoyeon couldn't. The planners dot over his desk and nearly tip out of his periphery and onto the floor. He confides the rest of the night with the world at his desk.

Tape accompanies him and his memories for most of the hour, fanning off edges of the wood or curling with his fingertips at the ends. He gathers every picture he abandoned out of pure procrastination and the desire to spend as much time as he can with Mingyu and Seoyeon here, stacks them into piles. He lays each fragment of his life, each pause of time's orbit before him. In the midst of stolen snapshots from behind his eyes, a jutting piece of pale green sways his eyes away for a moment. He plucks it out of the haphazard of an untouched album, and the pale green cardstock at his palms plucks at his heartstrings.

Seoyeon's handwriting welcomes him at the top of the page, headlining his entire vision in thick white marker with _To Dad_ and _From Seoyeon_ with confidence in the English alphabet that must have taken her practice beyond what he witnesses in the video calls. The letters aren't as shaky as before, no wobbling curves where straight lines would be or connecting the letters in the qualms of a new language. With no other words in the front cover other than those four, something that hints him what this booklet will be about, no _By Kim Seoyeon_ , this book she created might not be a spoiler of her imagination this time. A quick flip-through, and the world around him blurs at pictures glued onto the pages and small pockets of her handwriting above, below, or right beside a printed edge.

With nothing else on the front or the back covers of the book, the first page is prefaced with white engulfing Mingyu's handwriting on a pink sticky note. He runs a fingertip over Mingyu's note, over the ridges of glue from the next page threatening to bleed into this first.

_A couple of weeks before leaving for NYC, Minghao showed Seoyeon how to take pictures. She wanted to print these out and share them with you. I hope you like them._

_My telescope from Uncle Jihoon!_

The first picture paints Seoyeon's window with the silver telescope perched at the window sill. Winter grays still hit hard against the glass at the time of this image, ghosts of rooftop lines emerging through but never blocking out the specks of stars there. Her blue curtains are drawn to the sides and leave part of the city a secret to him. The picture focuses on the telescope and blurs beyond the white glints, beyond the walls of the window. It must have been Seoyeon's quick learning and Minghao's patient hands that helped her focus the camera on that telescope.

_My desk. I don't know what to write._

The next page seals her room once again but this time, a tin cylinder of markers stand upright on the table besides a blank booklet. The white page protects the blue words of Seoyeon's _Once upon a time_ and nothing else. And it's the last part of her caption that frees the chuckle from the quiet, the tip of his tongue ready to call out for Seoyeon with a question of how this story came out in the end or if the story still troubles herself with words, the plot, or the world.

Then he remembers where he is and where she is. He remembers that the two places aren't the same.

_Daddy told me to take a good picture of him so here it is!!_

Her third picture eradicates the oncoming heavy sigh of the distance between them. The water from the cup in his hand might as well have sprayed on the wall and across his laptop, but he pinches his lips shut and thumbs off the water beading at the corner. The entire picture is taken up by the side of Mingyu's face, trademark mole on his cheek and the hints of a smile at the bottom corner. The crinkle around his eyes eases its way off the frame by the zoom-up of the camera there or the press of the lens to his face.

His eyes cling onto the words under the next picture than the actual picture itself. _Dad look at all the books you bought me_. He runs his fingertips and his eyes over and move again over the first word, as if the more he does it, the more he hears Seoyeon say it in his mind and hopefully, the world grants his wishes true and it's no longer just in his mind that hears her say it.

 _It's always books_ , he tells himself with a deep exhale of disbelief and his reality. _A part of Seoyeon is books._

He squints into the disappointment of the book nearing its end. It's a picture of the dining table but instead of the typical meal or Seoyeon's homework splayed across the table, Minghao seizes one end of the tabletop with an artillery of pictures. If he brings the book closer to his eyes, he can piece out someone who resembles Seoyeon in a few of those pictures but not quite. At the other side of the table is the complete opposite, though, with pieces of plastic and a camera lens, Junhui's focused eyes at the frame of the camera in his hand. _Uncle Minghao is showing us pictures. Uncle Junhui is fixing Daddy's old camera_.

He squints harder into the pictures within the picture. The familiar short bookshelf under the television houses books with letters too big and binding too thin for Seoyeon's taste. The fact that there are _two_ kids in that single picture, Wonwoo pieces this entire picture together.

Junhui is taking apart Mingyu's old camera, the one he gave to Minseo who knows when. The pictures on the table must have been the ones Minghao recovered from the vintage thing, pictures of Yeeun that he had mistaken for Seoyeon in her younger years.

One turn of the page and the palm caving into the frame punches him skeptical of whose it belongs to. But the caption under and Soonyoung's mischievous grin stop him from questioning so. _Uncle Soonyoung makes scary noises sometimes :(_

The last page of the book grasps at his heart endeared for the shot of Mingyu in his bedroom in Seoul, donning a yellow sweater. A slight blur settles at his outline and somehow, the semi-focus of the camera makes the picture all more clear of who's behind the shutter button. He holds up a peace sign, holds up the quietest of smiles at the camera. It blankets his heart serene with the golden glow of Mingyu's skin and the lights dimming the off-white of the walls and the mahogany of the headboard. _This one is my first picture of Daddy. I told him it's blurry, but he says to keep it because it looks nice_.

The end of the book surrenders pictures and letters. When his eyes drift up to take in what Seoyeon did for him, what Seoyeon made for him, his eyes skip to the Christmas tree, untouched by the holiday's close. Still carries on strings of ornaments and lights, Wonwoo brings the book with him. He crouches down before the green plastic and plugs the lights merry and bright. He stands back up to check if all the lights still flicker in that same blinding holiday spirit. Despite his eyes straining like the first time he plugged this tree, the tree shines dimmer than usual without the people who decorated the tree with him. All buds of white and red amidst the gathering of ornaments at his waist-level. And he sits down before the tree.

He sits down with the book in his lap and goes through the pictures once more, lets the memories Seoyeon brought across the ocean to share with him ruminate. Something about the picture of Junhui and Minghao tells him Mingyu's lost interest in photography sparked somehow, that Mingyu might have asked for his old camera back from his sister to get all the broken parts working again. Mingyu might have asked for it back in his possession, to dust off the pain of the past and hold the camera, to stop himself from letting the world spin too fast that his memory needs to catch up. He wonders what that something is.

And he robs a better study around his apartment, picking up the little things and habits Mingyu and Seoyeon left behind for now. From the couch Seoyeon spent two days sinking herself into because of her ankle to the bathroom door left ajar enough for meager Christmas lights to deflect off Seoyeon's shampoo bottle at the edge of the bathtub. The floral scent he always kissed into the top of her head after every shower before bed. Then at his desk, the scatter of sticky notes on the wood and the wall, sketches and words and familiar wonderings that Mingyu left there. The Empire State Building at night, Seoyeon standing at the top of the stairs with her arms stretched out, Wonwoo himself holding the camera up to his face. Snapshots of their life here during those two weeks or so, penned down by the one spectating it all happen.

He dares to turn around towards the balcony, curtain-slits of the surviving lasts of holiday streets against wintering dusk. He returns back to the tree, though, refuses to let his eyes linger there for too long. Because that very spot reminds him of Seoyeon and a solid part of their night spent counting Christmas lights. The moment when she asked to go up to the rooftop and when the rooftop became more than somewhere he never dared to step out to.

It all makes him wish Seoyeon was just a cheek's turn away, somewhere up at his bed or attempting to read the English words written on his planner, count the number of appointments at this work day. It makes him wish Mingyu was here, right beside him at the Christmas tree, telling him all about the photos and how they came to be.

When he steps inside the bathroom for a shower, he saves Seoyeon's shampoo bottle and Mingyu's body wash under the sink, where they can find it for the next time they visit here again, whenever that may be. And when he dries all the drops he can from his hands and hair, he hugs himself inside of Mingyu's sweatshirt. Its hood is a bit too big for his head but the jacket is not too big for the comfort. His own arms around himself, inside Mingyu's sweatshirt, he thinks this is as close to a hug from Mingyu that he can get at the moment.

It never hits him until now; the kitchen is even more lonely than he thought it could ever be.

Dishes at the drying rack remain in the same spots he left them yesterday before Mingyu and Seoyeon departed. When he returned from the airport, no amount of energy could push him to store them away after he and Mingyu washed them, after Seoyeon stood on a dining chair to help arrange them. She wanted to help, and the chair was a way to save the tiptoes of her feet from the searing pain at her ankles.

Good morning greetings exchanged in the afternoon hours, the scrunch of Mingyu's eye shut as he wandered his way around the kitchen with a peck at the back of his neck. Wondering if the sounds of the cutting board were too loud for the slumbering Seoyeon up the bed and Mingyu bringing a bite of home that his stomach longed for. He doesn't have any of these right now; it's only been a day since he last did, but he can wait. He will wait.

It won't hurt him too bad and unhealthy if he cooks something closer to the home he misses many years ago. He opens the cabinet and reaches out for the packs of ramen. But his eyes freeze at the door of it, at the blue sticky note hanging there. It's one, he recognizes, he ran out recently during Mingyu and Seoyeon's trip here.

Seoyeon's handwriting is a cute kind of crooked, masked by her conviction to learn the alphabet. It's _Eat, dad, eat!!_ at his eyes and a promise to take better care of himself while they're away a constant in the back of his mind.

He plucks the sticky note off, seals it on the wall at his desk with his thumb. One swipe, two swipes, a third, and his thumb burns until he picks up the roll of tape and hangs the note besides Mingyu's old one of _The most important meal of the day is breakfast_.

Before heading up to bed, he carries his whole heart to conjure up the courage to take the tree down, to pledge himself to tear it down for the next year. He unplugs it, sure, but his heart abandons that courage when it comes to pulling the ornaments off and unwinding the strings of lights. Perhaps he can keep the tree up all year. It's not as if he invites anyone else into his home, anyway.

\----

_Three-thirty?_

He questions his eyes against the blare of the ringtone so late into the night. He groans, but it cuts short when his eyes squint hard enough to piece out Mingyu's name blinding his eyes. He answers the phone call, a gruff "Hello?" that might not sound anything close to his actual voice. The first thing he hears shoots at his ears.

"Oh, no, I forgot about the time difference," Mingyu speeds through into an apology that he believes shouldn't be said at all. The anxiety of the mishap and locking up the hours wrong trickle into his voice, almost sadly so, "I'm so sorry, Wonwoo. Just go back to sleep."

Wonwoo breathes out the sorrows of distance. He _should_ be used to this, _should_ have gotten used to it after all these years. But he can't blame Mingyu at all, especially since he's vulnerable to making the same mistake.

"It's okay," manages from the weary chuckle. Mingyu's inhales prod at the silence, and he wishes the two of them are somewhere in this very apartment with him, that they're still here with him. Seoyeon at the couch and watching cartoons, piecing out the story with what she sees more than what she hears. Mingyu knocking his toes into his, despite how wide his bed spans , and fingertips into his hair because too close is never close enough for the two of them. "I really miss you both," defeated from his lips.

"We miss you, too." Mingyu's sigh from his end doesn't help with the distance, either, but the next part lifts his spirits up a slight, though they end up where this conversation began, anyway. "We fell asleep after Jihoon dropped us home. Seoyeon's still sleeping right now, actually."

"Is she sleeping in her room?"

"Yeah, we slept in her room this time," and Wonwoo hears the smile in his voice. "We started unpacking her bag, then we got so sleepy." But his voice deepens this time, and he feels the weight of his heart into the next words. "It's been a long time since I slept in her bed with her."

The words sink into him, drops a weight from the top of his throat to the pit of his guts, how long it's been since that happened when Wonwoo himself occasionally slept in her bed during his visits there. Mingyu's voice picks up the downhill of the conversation, "We barely fit in her bed anymore. I almost fell off when I woke up."

He can't help the smile on his face imagining it, though, a little sad at the corners, a little pained that Mingyu spent so much of the first years raising his daughter alone without being able to sleep beside her in her own bed. He grows quiet, though, more at the fact that it's been so long since Seoyeon and Mingyu felt comfortable enough to share the same space like that than the sleepiness at three-in-the-morning's wake.

"It's okay, Wonwoo," Mingyu mumbles and as if he reads his mind like clockwork, "it means Seoyeon and I have a much better relationship than before." Wonwoo sighs just to have a sound somehow. "I'll let you go back to sleep."

He doesn't fight it this time, not like all those other times. The sleep at his eyes coax his eyelids shut this instance around; it might be heading to work so soon after they left or it might just be waking up earlier. So he yawns, promises to call them after work during an hour of better convenience for the both of them, from both ends.

"Okay," Mingyu agrees.

The moon holds his face in his hands, drops a kiss to his forehead, and time is gentle with the two of them. He basks in the silence, in Mingyu's slow inhales, and Mingyu's quiet, "I love you, Wonwoo."

His alarm has yet to burst through his ears yet and when he opens his eyes, his phone succumbs to the dark of the morning at his pillow. It jogs his memory a block or two to remember Mingyu's call in the middle of his night and the start of his afternoon.

Getting ready for work drills hollow in his chest not too long after passing by the Christmas tree a few times in the span of kneading the sleep off his eyes. Later on, when his alarm does break through the day, it saves himself enough time to pack a lunch for work because he may stay another hour longer in his office, and going out somewhere might consume too much of his time and worries just this one day.

The monotony of the morning--flipping through his planner, crossing off names and to-do's beginnings--crumbles at his phone ringing and Bohyuk's name on his screen. He checks the time, close to peeling off blankets and winter sunshine for the stars out in Changwon.

His mother greets him in one of his father's oldest, yet warmest sweatshirts. "Are you getting ready for work, Wonwoo?" his mother asks. She shifts back on the bed enough to recline onto her pillow.

He closes up his planner to focus on his mother's question and his father making space besides her on their bed, but his father brings his planner back out to the conversation. "What are you reading there?"

He leafs through the planner back to this week's page. He holds it up to the camera with his fingertip anchored at today's date unusually filled at this time of the year. His mind refuses to let the world whir up, though, because this is the first time he’s showing his planner to his parents. His mother nudges her glasses and leans forward to read off the names unfamiliar at her tongue and the scheduled times.

"He has a busy day today," his father notes. "Did you find a ring for Mingyu?"

"We called Mingyu today and Seoyeon answered it," his mother adds on.

He watches his father melt into an eye-crushing smile, so much that it looks like his eyes are more of a smile than his lips. "She said her dad still doesn't have a ring and it's better that way. I asked her why is that."

"Is it true Mingyu dropped the ring?" she interjects, and their dire need to know breaks the seriousness in the conversation. His voice cracks at his first bout of laughter in his day.

His father's deep laugh blends in with his, and his mother can't help but join in with her fingertips over her mouth. "Seoyeon said Mingyu might lose the ring, so get him a candy ring, instead."

His mind crosses out the guys whose humor reminds him of Seoyeon at those very words. For some reason, his mind saves Minghao's name because he can hear Minghao say those same exact words.

But even then, he still wants to search for the perfect ring.

He bids his parents a goodnight when his mother begins a fit of yawns. He leaves with a promise that he will eat something delicious for them while they sleep, directs his camera towards the containers of food at the counter and a lunch bag he dug up from the depths of his closet.

"That wasn't on your hand the last time I saw you," bashes the flush in his cheeks irreparable when his first client since his return, one of his last before he left, tells him that. A flower pokes from the edge of Vincent's shoulder and his eyes fall into the spark of Amelia's eyes behind her fiancé.

They linger at his door after greeting the receptionist, no hurry to step inside and pen down the first word in so long. But it's the first time he ever linked that the Vincent sitting at the other side of his desk weeks ago is the same Vincent who introduced Amelia to the dictionary of flowers and the names could be intended for something other than the flowers themselves. 

"Congratulations, Wonwoo," she beams under the white beanie. A step to the side, half of her body hiding behind her fiance's shoulder, tufts of white like snow and yellow of dewing morning light hails up his hands.

And it doesn't stop when he dusts the snowflakes off his shoulders, toes his shoes at the door, and lets winter drip the remaining ones there. He opens his phone to a string of congratulations from each of the guys. Seungcheol sends something greater than words of congratulations; he sends a picture of the triplets. The three standing up in wonderment of a camera, lens luring them in. Yoonhyun in particular allows a peek of his lower teeth in a one-sided smile. Each of the triplets in matching footed onesies surges the desire to hold each of their faces in his hands and kiss their foreheads. He saves the picture, thanks Seungcheol for a share of his memories.

After settling in Mingyu's sweatshirt, he swipes through for a video call earlier into his night. When Mingyu picks it up, he lies under the blue sheets with Seoyeon, his arm around her shoulders and her scratching at her eyes. He thinks Seoyeon showcases peak tier of endearment when she squints up at him against the light of her room and the bird nest of her hair. 

_It was just a couple days ago_ , his thoughts yearn to turn back time to at least a week ago.

When she does exactly that, she buries her face into Mingyu's arm and groans. Mingyu smiles when she flips over, her back to the screen, and stretches her arms over her pillow's edge and her head, a hand landing on the side of Mingyu's face.

Mingyu chuckles, asks what time it is for him there. With eight in the evening nearing at his end, he then greets Seoyeon a good morning. She turns back around, eyes open but blinking gentle, and returns with a "Good morning, Dad." It's quite down for the words, but he does hold onto her bringing out the sentiment in the message.

"I wish we didn't have to go back," she sighs, squishing her cheek back against Mingyu's bicep.

He opens up his arm again for Seoyeon to rest her face against his chest, to slip under his arm. Mingyu rubs at her arm and explains that they had to go for now. To erase the frown off her face before she can ask when, before either he or Mingyu have to answer with that cursed “Soon, Seoyeon, but we’re not sure yet,” the longing of her eyes somewhere beyond the screen, Wonwoo thanks her for sharing her pictures with him. He mentions finding the book at his desk yesterday while putting up pictures of his own, how coincidental it was to stumble upon her pictures under his own.

Seoyeon smiles bashful at his compliments, hides her face under the blanket. He glances at his own face on the screen and notices the same gaze of wanting to pinch Seoyeon's cheeks on Mingyu's. And even though Mingyu explained it enough in the sticky note, he asks how Seoyeon learned how to take pictures like the ones in her book.

She pokes her eyes from under the blanket before she pulls it back and lets it settle at her shoulders. She recalls how "Daddy used to take a lot of pictures with his camera before, and he got it back.” Seoyeon brings an invisible camera up to her eyes and pinches one eye shut, mimics the real camera she held to take those pictures at his desk and the shutter’s click. "When Uncle Junhui finished fixing the camera, Daddy just turned it on and showed me how to hold it."

"The pictures are very pretty, Seoyeon," Wonwoo compliments her once more. He loves them all and "The first picture you took of your dad is very nice, too."

Mingyu forces the morning into their systems. After telling Seoyeon to wash her face and fix her bed, that he would make breakfast in the meantime, Wonwoo ends up propped up at Seoyeon's desk. During this hour, he would be at the kitchen counter or Mingyu's desk as he stirred up a meal or stirred up the frustrations of the client he has to meet at the build site. While her room empties of words and people, he heads over to his own stove and cooks for himself, something Mingyu taught him.

When the door squeaks and footsteps barrel through his phone speakers, Seoyeon yanks her blanket off her bed and spreads it flat on the floor. He watches her grab a corner and bring it to the opposite corner and all the while, the conversation drives into her going back to school in February and "How come we can't stay in New York until February?"

And he understands as her wanting to stay even longer in New York City, that she wanted to be with him, the three of them together. Relief washes him down that she enjoys her time here so much that she wants to stay that long. The idea sends a smile through the rest of his morning.

"Maybe it has something to do with your dad's work," Wonwoo suggests. One glance above the steam and the pot, the water gurgling up the tofu and potato bits, he holds back the chuckle when she huffs at placing her folded blanket at the end of her bed. "They probably needed him, so he couldn't stay too long."

She makes her way off the camera's perimeter and when she returns, she hauls in her suitcase and lowers it flat on her playmat. "How come I can't stay with you, then?"

Words and logic fail him. It might be due to the fact that he wants Mingyu to enjoy everything New York that they do, that he can't imagine having to be the end of their relationship in which it's Wonwoo and Seoyeon without Mingyu. He thinks it's also his fear that Seoyeon will miss Mingyu too much if their temporary separation does end up that way.

He blinks, swallows hard at the obvious. The desire to plant his palm on his forehead draws off the logic of it all. Wonwoo is not legally bound to Seoyeon, and it’s one thing he doesn’t know how to go about telling her. That despite her "Dad" directed for him in the same way that "Daddy" is for Mingyu and all the people he introduced Seoyeon to as his daughter, the world can use the printed words against him.

He admits that he doesn't know why she can't stay with him. Multiple explanations to offer, but he doesn't want to confuse her with all of them at once. He’s just glad she goes about unpacking her leftovers of New York with that answer.

She sits on the floor and unzips her suitcase, half as big as the one Mingyu carries around. When she opens it up, he loses sight of her and he's expecting the ache in his stomach soon. At the sight of Seoyeon tipping forward and planting her face onto her shirts, he slaps a palm over his mouth before the laugh sputters out.

Her voice muffles into the shirts he and Mingyu washed before they were set for home, "It smells just like your clothes."

Wonwoo turns his stove off and gives his stew one last stir. "That's because your dad and I washed your clothes while you were sleeping."

Seoyeon lifts her head back up and casts her hair away from her face to squeak out an "Oh!" that has Mingyu’s laugh tumbling from the kitchen. She dunks her head back into the shirts and inhales deep, exhales drowning the fading sounds of their joy. She sits back up and thanks him for "the nice-smelling clothes."

He tells her that it's no problem at all and that he's glad she likes the smell of his laundry. And he questions himself why he noticed it just now. Perhaps its her constant tugging of the long sleeves up and the design in the front, but Seoyeon has been wearing his sweatshirt during this entire call. The hem hovers at her knees when she stands up to store her shirts away into the closet. His heart squeezes in his chest and flutters when the sleeves straighten out on her arms, covering down to her fingertips. The world can’t make her any cuter than she already is, but how is it possible right in front of his eyes?

She gathers up the balled-up pairs of socks in her arms, careful crooks of her elbows in carrying as many as she can to her drawer in the closet. When she returns for another trip of socks, she asks, "Dad, when I look up the stories you tell me, why can't I find them?"

The world stops spinning for a second. "Did you really look them up?"

Her last trip for socks ends with her opening up a black zipper pouch at her lap. A hair clip slips out, followed by a scrunchie. She stuffs them back into the pouch before all its contents fall out. "I asked Daddy to help me find them online and when nothing came up, he told me to ask you."

He scratches the back of his head, ladling some stew into a bowl. "I made those stories up for you."

Seoyeon frowns and her shoulders deflate of that spark for the same story. "Does that mean I can't hear them again?"

"I can try writing them down," spills from his lips before he considers the idea all the way through, "like what you did with your story."

How many stories did he tell Seoyeon ever since he met her? Does she remember all of them? Can Wonwoo _himself_ remember the plot of each story? A character, a theme in each?

A shove of her suitcase into the closet, she stretches herself across the floor and rolls around, stretches her limbs once more. And when she steadies herself on the floor, her eyes aim for the ceiling and the door slightly ajar. A knock on the door, Mingyu's head poking to the widening crack, he tells her breakfast is ready.

For a moment, his world revolves around white print against the dark green of his sweatshirt as Seoyeon picks up Mingyu's phone and brings it to the kitchen. Her careful fingers try to lean the phone against something without dropping it all at once. After thanking her father for the meal, she drags a knife across the plate and picks up the slices of kimchi pancake. One piece into his bowl, a second into hers, Mingyu's eyes disappear and cheeks fill with joy more than the spoonful of rice he just took a bite of. She nods when Mingyu asks about any of her clothes fitting too small for her.

Mingyu pours in a glass of water for her as he continues on, "Just pack those up in a box and we'll give them to Yeeun. We can go shopping for new clothes before school starts."

She moves her hair past the curves of her face and when Mingyu lifts his hand up, pulls a hair tie from his wrist, he hands it over to Seoyeon. She gasps, thanks him for the hair tie, and she ties her hair up loose and not too off from the bird nest, but it stops her hair from touching her food. Mingyu reaches across the table to poke her cheek, "Maybe you can get a haircut, too."

Seoyeon picks up a piece of pancake and holds it up to the camera. Wonwoo smiles, leans over his own dinner and the counter to pretend to have a bite. She giggles, devours the piece in one bite. But that one share has him yawning, despite the early hours. Mingyu seems to have caught it somehow and suggests him to sleep.

He scratches at his eyes and agrees that he will. "Goodnight-" then the hours hit him too late. "Wait, it's morning there."

Mingyu shrugs, assures him that it's no big deal. It's not as if it's the first time it happened. He waves him a goodnight as Seoyeon waves over her, "I love you, Dad."

Mingyu looks at her, fondness all around after those words. And Wonwoo isn't shy this time to return the words back to her, "I love you, too, Seoyeon." 

\----

The map of New York City unfolds into ease when a single number on scrap paper makes its way to his palm. He doesn't know how else to thank Mingyu for saving him the worry of guessing a ring measurement for him, but he presumes the only way is to buy the ring. But even with a number and pin-marks of jewelry shops in the city, he doesn't know where to start.

With each consultant, tailor, manager, receptionist, even _client_ that passes his way with a ring on their left hands, even Sam and Jerri themselves tagging in the list of people he's asked, a new name and a new pin-mark come up on his map. A lunch out with them becomes a spiral of _How many jewelry shops are there in this city?_ and _Will I find the ring there?_

He doesn't know where to start on the list, perhaps starting out the one most-mentioned and go down from there. He just hopes that somehow, after a shop or two, maybe five will be pushing it for him, he will walk out with a ring in a velvet box and will head to a stationary store to find a notebook, a beginning of something he once thought was impossible.

A couple shops around the city wears out into hearing his GPS wrong and into an accidental trip into the flower district. Wandering into a shop, darting out to see what next door sells, he picks up a succulent. He laughs off the twist of his tongue when he attempts to repeat the "Echeveria elegans" the store owner enunciates for him.

And in the apartment, though palms empty of velvet and diamond, he keeps the succulent at the window sill beside his bed. And on his bed, he presses the withered flower petals of Mingyu and Seoyeon's bouquets, something that will keep these flowers longer than that one moment in the airport. A rich purple notebook for Seoyeon and a light brown traveler's notebook for Mingyu. He might have to sleep on the couch tonight to save his progress and to save spots for plucking petals and leaves from the stem.

\----

The weekend sacrifices Mingyu's hours of sleep when Wonwoo calls him into evening's break. Eight o'clock is at its brink into the other side of the globe. A ruffle of his hair and a peel of the sheets to the side, morning shadows cast across his shoulders well enough to put the lines and colors on the grays. He throws the blanket over the bed, careful movements closer to the pillows. A quiet smack of lips, Mingyu must have draped her in the blankets more secure and more warm before dawning a kiss on her sleeping face. He waits for the screen to blanch from the morning's shut curtains and Mingyu's refusal to wake Seoyeon up.

Once the kitchen lights settle out to the ceiling and walls, Mingyu coughs out the morning. "How's your day been?"

Wonwoo smiles when he bounds his way around the kitchen, watches the consistent crinkle of Mingyu's eyes against the light but the swivel of the rest of the apartment behind him. The view sets himself at the kitchen counter, closer towards the sink, as if guarding Mingyu while he opens up a cabinet and pulls out a mug.

He sighs heavy at another day with empty hands of velvet and diamond. Shop after shop, heavy sigh following the chime above the door, and business cards building up a deck into his wallet. "I'm still looking for a ring." But he closes his fingers up and turns his knuckles towards him, angles his hand well enough to catch the ring in his hand. "I still can't believe his," seems to be pitting against his reality, the wish to expire the entire phrase when Mingyu is right before him.

He loves the simplicity of the ring, a silver band that doesn't cover up his finger from one knuckle to the next. A darker silver band wraps around the whole ring, divides it into three, and right in the center is a square of a diamond sitting there. He swallows down the regret of how much Mingyu must have paid for this.

Something else itches at his palate, though, probes the truth out his lips when Mingyu begins the morning at a lower cabinet and brings out a saucepan to the counter. Faking the sounds to be right in front of him, at the other side of his counter, doesn't hinder the, "I wish I can visit soon."

The rush of the ring on his finger might have coerced those words out. Or the fact that Seoyeon wanted to be in New York longer, wanted to be with _Wonwoo_ longer, or the story she left behind before she did.

"I know it's the busiest time for you," Mingyu challenges unresolved, knots his fingers together and cracks the knuckles, "but do you want to visit for her birthday?"

He perks up at the idea. He wouldn't mind casting a week or two for Seoyeon's birthday. After all, he-

The exhilaration of the idea dissipates when he whispers out Mingyu's name. Mingyu spins on his heels from the stove to the camera, despite thinking the bare decibels of his voice could have been ignored by his phone. His heart sinks into the pit of his guts when the thought urges on, "I never celebrated her birthday with her before."

His eyes descend for the ring in his hand, the physical promise of being with Mingyu and Seoyeon, and he couldn't even be there to celebrate her _birthday_.

"Hey," is patient at his ears, "hey, Wonwoo." He blinks the blur at the bottom of his vision, wipes the tear off before Mingyu can pick it up at the pixels. "If you do decide to go, it just means this one will be more special for her." A weak dip of his chin towards his chest serves as a nod against those missed birthdays and the many more birthdays he missed of Mingyu’s.

He wrings his heart of that bitterness he used to cling onto at each passing birthday with a video call and nothing that can close up the distance. Celebrating her birthday for the first time will happen sooner or later; the only thing stopping them is distance this time. There isn’t the apprehensions of Seoyeon’s true feelings towards him, the possibility that she may not want him in his life after all. There are no cautious words when it comes to sharing a word to her, that at any second, she might shatter the call with her cries he caused and they can do nothing to alleviate the situation. If anything, Seoul in May might be the best for them right now.

"Can we keep this a secret from Seoyeon?" burns through the heat of his cheeks, the pinch of his lips to shy the smile away. "I-I kind of want to surprise her."

\----

His morning delves into the sweeter side of all his sun’s greetings. A picture of the triplets, each donning a crooked birthday hat, pink collared shirt, and white pants greet into their group chat a happy birthday for the three. A three-layered cake, narrowing circles until the top, with a white wax candle sits at the top. Each layer of the cake is draped in a specific color--blue at the bottom, green in the middle, and yellow at the top. He sends his birthday greetings to the triplets both under the group chat and under Seungcheol's name alone, to a healthy year of having them on this earth and many more to come.

What aches his teeth in the overload of sweetness is Seungcheol spoiling him with pictures specifically to him, rather than to the rest of the guys flooding with birthday greetings and Soonyoung’s _I have to do it three times_ before sending out each syllable in “Happy Birthday.” Three pictures, one for each triplet, of eating a slice of cake. No bib and no restraints from the mess they will make. Another of Daehyun bringing a fistful of cake to Yujin's lips and another of Yoonhyun completely missing Seungcheol's mouth, dabbing a dollop of frosting on his chin. Then there's Soohyun in a white headband, holding out her hand smothered in green frosting to the camera.

He thanks Seungcheol for personally sending these pictures of the triplets to him. Perhaps he can print them out and find a place for them on the wall. The triplets won't understand the distance just yet, and he hopes that he can return Seungcheol's gesture somehow.

His office survives off murmurs of the floor and around the shop in general. With people coming in with mere revising of vows or churning out the first few words or sentences, he drives his time worthwhile in his office with picking out which pictures to have ready for the print shop.

Some are leftovers of Mingyu's solo trip here. Most of the folder on his laptop, though, comprises of Mingyu and Seoyeon's time here--from Central Park to Maialino to the supermarket that maps home anything but an ocean’s wave away. He drags over one picture of his family, dated farther back than most. It's all of them standing at Yeojwacheon bridge. Cherry blossom petals floating by behind them, offerings of the branches around them. Seoyeon stands between his parents, holds onto his mother's hand while his father rests a hand on her shoulder. Mingyu slips an arm behind Bohyuk and with one of his arms around Mingyu's back, his other slips secure around Yerin's waist.

He chuckles quiet behind his desk at the picture from Chloe's wedding. He completely forgot about the photobooth because the pictures from her wedding buried themselves too deep in the worries of Seoyeon standing tall enough for the camera to capture her. In the gold backdrop, Wonwoo has her lifted onto his arms, settled perfect at the bend of his elbow, and nearly half of Mingyu's body stands behind him on Seoyeon's side of the picture. A hand at Wonwoo's shoulder, Seoyeon beams the picture brighter with her peace sign.

In the comforts of his four walls, he's thankful for the two sleeves in his wallet. He slides the picture of his family at the bridge on the top sleeve and the one from the wedding right under. He opens up a box of much older pictures, filled with some that Minghao selected himself, and looks through them just to revive the memories once more.

Silhouettes of him, Junhui, Soonyoung, and Jihoon untouched by the gushes of rainbow water. He remembers that night of wishing for a smooth adoption for Soonyoung and pinching his lips shut, withholding Junhui's satisfaction of telling an unfunny joke that actually knocked the wind out of Jihoon. There's one of Seoyeon pressing her face onto the glass, cheeks pink in the amusement of the puppy at the other side. A third one of Seoyeon on his shoulders at the supermarket, shelves and shelves of cereal before them. How much Seoyeon grew since this picture, Wonwoo thinks she’s growing too fast for him.

But there's one that specifically freezes him up in his seat. The back-views of him and Seoyeon at Junhui and Minghao's apartment, sitting at the counter nonchalant in their own world, as if everyone else around them weren't calling for either one of them. The last syllables droned out in their conversations, he remembers.

 _Wonwoo_ , the typical "How is America?", _Wonwoo_ , the routine "Do you like it there?", _Wonwoo_ , "It's your first time meeting Seoyeon, isn't it?"

 _Seoyeon_ , everyone’s "How is my princess?", _Seoyeon_ , "You're getting so tall, like your dad," _Seoyeon_ , aged like an afterthought "You love your Uncle Wonwoo already."

From the metal tin and box set open on the counter, they're the first gifts he ever gave to Seoyeon, dates him back to his first trip back, his first time sitting down with Seoyeon. The stool engulfs her small figure, and she probably can’t slip her arms through that winter jacket anymore without patches of skin showing. How much more Seoyeon became to him than just his best friend's daughter.

He remembers bringing out the bubbly side of her, asking if Ariel's hair really is blue. The light giggles at her mischievous ways and confidence in her voice, "No, but I thought she might look better."

He remembers smiling at her, reaching for another shade of blue from the tin of colored pencils, "I think so, too."

When he reaches the end of the pile, he doesn't return this picture back into the box. Tape at his fingertips, he pastes this picture up on the wall in front of his desk, right besides the one Seoyeon took not too long after bidding Jihoon a Merry Christmas. With him and Seoyeon lying on their sides, the crown of her head rests under his chin and the world a blur without his glasses on there. He smiles on, just like Seoyeon, but with sleep more prominent under his eyes and hair than the hour at that moment in time.

Holding the pictures up right next to each other, the Wonwoo from years ago would have never thought either of those pictures would be a part of his reality, his future. The Wonwoo in the first picture years ago would laugh it off as a joke, a hoax that some sort of content and a step towards that happiness can ever come in the form of the people he has been away from for so long. The Wonwoo years ago could have sworn Seoyeon would hate him enough to never talk to him again.

He swallows down the pounding of his heart at his temple when the line trills with Bohyuk's name on the screen. He tips his head back and sighs at the sweat plastered on his hands, the question of his parents possibly celebrating Seoyeon's birthday in Seoul, driving the entire way from Changwon. He hopes his parents will be okay with it, the travel time to Seoul and back. He considers driving them himself to Seoul or joining them on the train ride there. He can ask Bohyuk and his parents to stay in Mingyu's apartment, but that's already a lot to ask for Mingyu and his family. He can also pay for a hotel for them, as many nights and days they need.

His fingernails dig into his palms when the answer opens up to his parents sitting at the dining table. They trade the usual greetings and "How are you?" But it doesn't take long after his "I'm okay" for his mother to pick up a hint and ask what happened.

He tells himself to breathe, to ignore the shakiness of his voice. "Do you want to celebrate Seoyeon's birthday with us this year?"

His mother blinks fast, eyelashes dusting the air, and then her eyes grow wider. The thought clicks into her. "You're coming here."

Wonwoo nods, swallows hard again, plays with the pen cap left astray on his desk. His eyes drift down to the pen and he takes another deep breath before he restarts his words. "The drive to Seoul is long but if you can come, if you could celebrate Seoyeon's birthday with us, that would be great." He blinks, eyes landing on his lap and the nerves a projectile at the tips of his fingers, the snapping of the pencap in two. "It would mean a lot."

And it's not just because it's Seoyeon's birthday. It's his first celebration with her and Mingyu, rather than fumbling with the appropriate hour at either ends of their universe. No calling at odd times of the day for either of them. No watching Seoyeon opening up a gift that left his hands at the post office the week before. No hearing Seoyeon wish she can stay up past her bedtime to talk to him as long as she likes because defeating the distance and the time difference is her birthday wish.

His mother calls out for his brother behind her. And a creak of the door passes for his brother to step into the camera's periphery, waving a quick hand at him. His mother drops the news that "We're going to Seoul for Seoyeon's birthday."

"Sure" is quick, and he thinks his brother should take some more time to consider the drive before answering. He counts something with his fingertips, notes that, "It's in three months, though."

"Tell the hospital you're off on her birthday," his father says off the camera. "Be sure you can be off that day."

"For sure." He turns to Wonwoo. "What should we get for Seoyeon?"

\----

Packing his bags and picking out the sturdiest of gift boxes are less burdensome when Mariano is the one asking when he will go back to Korea.

But when was the last time Mariano went inside his office? Before now and the moment he tacked his first picture of him, Seoyeon, _and_ Mingyu?

With his break sign back up and Mariano's lunch bag on his desk, he informs him that he wants to take some time off at the end of May, despite that very month throwing him appointments after appointments and the option of opening up his office just one more day. But he tells him that the end of May for sure because "I want to celebrate Seoyeon's birthday with her." But his voice dampens into the reason of his wishes, "I never got to before."

"I'll let them know," Mariano assures him.

A second visit into his office before he shuts the lights off and locks the door, he prints out a sign to tape up at his door of the days, the _weeks_ he will be gone. Nearing the date means he'll only accept walk-ins and the last bits of scheduled appointments. He slaps sticky notes on his monitor and types up reminders of May twenty-four. He posts up a warning about that day on his website, rubs another sticky note of that day onto his planner, though the square for _May 24_ is already littered _JFK_ , _Check in early_ , and _Seoul Seoul Seoul_.

One turn away from home, he wonders when this hobby store opened up in the mall. At the sliding doors, he can't count the number of aisles that greet him before he even treads a toe in. The shop can overrun the sun's job at this time of the year, with the brightness of the shop lighting his eyes to blinking hard for a moment. The vibe in the shop eases him into wandering into more aisles with associates asking if he needs any help or if he needs any ideas. Past the paint sets because Seoyeon tried painting already and landed some pigments outside of the canvas. Past the book section because Seoyeon's collection continues to grow as much as her. But there's one thing he continues to pass by after mapping out the shop and what they offer inside.

A flipbook animation kit for children lures his feet back to that shelf and his hands to reaching it. Frame by frame, Seoyeon can tell a story with her words and a few pictures but perhaps, she wants to try telling her story a different way. With the kit in his basket and extra stacks of flipbooks, he steers himself at the register. On the way, he drops a sketchbook for Mingyu, something to doodle in when he'd rather diffuse time and stress from the tablet and stylus.

When he steers himself towards the register, for some odd reason, he expects the friendly woman from the Disney store, just like all the other times he bought something for Seoyeon. He's not sure why it aches his heart to catch himself buying less and less from that store. It may just be the thought of Seoyeon growing up.

After a quick stop to a cafe, dropping his change into the tip jar for steaming tea instead of cold brew, he wanders around the first floor and the second. After cleaning up his apartment a bit and counting one less scarf in his drawer, he thinks three scarves will suffice for Mingyu’s greed for heat. It might have been an accident for Mingyu to pack his scarf in his suitcase, or he just wanted to take it with him. Either way, Wonwoo doesn't mind it at all, not with Mingyu's own shirts and sweatshirts he slips into at night like comfort calling him home.

He adds on a white scarf and a beanie with a peach fluff ball at the top for Seoyeon. And when winter greets the three of them once more, he imagines teasing her behind her back, squeezing the fluff and pretending he didn't approach anywhere close to her. He thinks she would look absolutely adorable bundled up in the winter. 

When he arrives home, stashes the gifts far from where the camera can peek at them, he asks Mingyu about calling for the day. With a _:(_ as a reply and an apology, Wonwoo assures him that it's all okay, that there's no need to apologize.

_20:45_

**_Wonwoo_ **

_Get some rest after_

_And tell Seoyeon I love her when you get home_

_20:46_

**_Mingyu_ **

_What about me_

His cheeks flare up a flustered pink at Mingyu's words. He should be used to saying it and Mingyu's way with his teases.

_20:46_

**_Wonwoo_ **

_I love you too I guess_

_20:47_

**_Mingyu_ **

_"I guess?????"_

Not even a clock's stroke after, he picks up his mother's call. With Seoyeon's birthday in a couple of months, she barrels in questions of what Seoyeon likes--flavors, hobbies, colors, clothes.

"Do you think she will want to have the mango cake again?" Her mother reminds him of the multiple slices Seoyeon devoured on Mingyu's birthday in Changwon. "Does she want any toys? What about dolls or those building blocks?"

With understanding Seoyeon the past few years, these questions don't hurt him like they used to. He remembers the way Seoyeon averted the toys in Anyang, leaving her cocooned under Wonwoo's arms as they read the books. As much as she played with the cars and the houses in her Auntie Minseo's house, she always wound her way back to the books there.

He dismisses having to buy Seoyeon toys, especially since, "She doesn't have many toys at home" and "I bought her Lego's and I'm sure she hasn't started building it."

What also can’t pain him is that they haven't started building it, no scatter of Lego pieces around the apartment during his last visit, no peeking over Mingyu's shoulder and catching her build it piece by piece. They're going to need more space than what their apartment offers to build it, anyway.

The smile his mother offers softens up his heart whole. Relief at her lips and assurance in her eyes, she says she will ask Bohyuk to order the mango cake for her birthday, drive it up to Seoul so Seoyeon can have a reminiscence's taste of Changwon.

"I'll order it," he proposes, already searching for the bakery on his laptop. "I'll ask him to pick it up on her birthday."

\----

Saturday morning recovers some energy from the first week back to answer Mingyu's call. The other side rings in at two in the morning, and he kind of wants to demand why sleep hasn't bothered Mingyu yet. When he answers the call, all he hears is a sniff. And when he asks what's wrong, what happened, Mingyu exhales nasal and shaky, admits that nothing bad happened over here, but "I miss you."

Wonwoo forces a deep breath and in all their time together, Seoyeon usually pops those words at him in their calls and sometimes, it was only those words that drove the call from seconds to minutes to hours. Something must have happened for Mingyu to call in the middle of the night just to tell him that, but then he ponders about all the instances in his own apartment, alone, and all the times he wished they were here with them. Sometimes, there isn't a big reason to miss someone. He can have absolutely nothing going on, no semblance of Seoyeon or Mingyu around, but the world may drop a weight on his chest to remind him that they're physically not there with him. Then suddenly, the world has him craving for the presence of the two through something more physical than internet connections and phone dials. And he understands that now.

"I miss you, too, Mingyu." He swallows down the tears, but he ends up needing to thumb the one clinging onto his jaw, ready to drop any second. He misses the light touches of reassurance and calling out to someone and hearing someone call his name in return in this cold apartment. He misses another person to hold that isn't his sweatshirt or his pile of pillows. Despite that looming hunch, as if all he has in his life are his words, sometimes, Mingyu doesn't need any for him to just know. "So much."

Mingyu frees out an exhausted sound from the bottom of his throat. "I couldn't sleep and it was-I had that in my mind."

Wonwoo pricks the tear at his eyes and he doesn't stop it from burning the way down his cheeks. He wishes he was besides Minyu to help him sleep, pull him close and run his fingers through his hair. Slip his arms around his chest and let him count his exhales before sleep finds him well. He thinks a late-night talk may help but with his voice cracking in those mere three words and how curt his sentences are from what he hears often, maybe not so much.

"I'll wait for you to sleep," Wonwoo proffers. He doesn't have much planned for his day, but it won't hurt either of them to try. It helped him the last time sleep refused to shelter him, and the monotony of his life day in and day out may send him to his dreams. "All I'm doing today are laundry and grocery shopping, though, so it won't be anything exciting.”

Mingyu assures his doubts that he won’t mind. He'll search for his earphones and slip back into bed, just listen to Wonwoo go about his day until sleep pities him.

After a stretch over his bed, one that has Mingyu chuckling airy at the sight of his hair in its aftermath, he brings his phone down and leans it against his empty mug housing a teabag. If Seoyeon chased for the stars later just this one time, Mingyu would tell him what to make and how to make it. But instead, he clicks his stove on and places a couple slices of bread on a frying pan. Between the cracks of eggs and, per Sam's recommendation, slices of avocado, he peeks down to his phone and closes his eyes for this second, smiles at Mingyu as much as his dry lips can stretch so soon into his morning. When he opens his eyes, Mingyu returns the smile, canines and all, in what Wonwoo decides is his favorite kind of smile from him.

With Mingyu hugging a pillow to his chest, perches the plush under his nose, he pulls out that familiar brand of potato starch from his cabinet that has Mingyu nodding a slight, flipping over on the bed to lie on his side and lay his face against the pillow. It's the brand Mingyu told him to buy, repetitions of the brand's name over his cooking during one breakfast phone call until Wonwoo said that he would buy it and no other. The memory wears away, though. Mingyu brings his phone closer to his face and he marks the lines under his eyes, heaviness seeing the world.

The second hour of the call ticks by at the top of the screen, and Wonwoo worries himself that this way of sending Mingyu to sleep isn't working. In the midst of folding his laundry at the couch, though, snores rumbling are the only things he can pick up in the call. He smiles at the afternoon glow of New York over Mingyu's half of his face, the other half soaked up by the pillow he embraces. A scurry of the screen and Seoyeon's arm tries to wrap over his chest, casts her hand hanging over the center of his chest. Someday soon, she will grow tall enough to completely cover Mingyu in her arms.

He continues the call for a minute to check if Seoyeon will stir from her own sleep. A sleepy whine from the bright light, a "Hi, Dad" that he loves to hear, or a simple squeak of "Daddy'" at the realization that her father woke up before she did. When he picks up her own snores, he bids her a quiet goodnight and ends the call.

He wishes to forget about the calendar and start his way back to Seoul for Seoyeon's birthday.

_15:43_

**_Mariano_ **

_Wonwoo_

_I hope you're having a good day so far_

_Are you still looking for a ring?_

The aluminum takeout from the kind receptionist in the shop winds up his meal slotted between lunch and dinner. Bought the week he returned, she knocked on his door with the desire of letting him try a meal that eases her homesickness. Luciana helped him with the double l's of pollo guisado in the midst of explaining that the hidden luxury of letting her taste a pinch of her childhood took around a twenty-minute wait to get to the front of the line. The piece of chicken thigh and the small clump of rice nearly slide off his fork when he reads the message. A blush shoves its way through his system, and he doubts he needed to mention it to Mariano for him to understand.

_15:45_

**_Wonwoo_ **

_Yes I am_

_It's hard to find the right one..._

_15:50_

**_Mariano_ **

_If you like, I can take you where I bought the ring for my wife_

_It's a small place_

_Maybe you haven't been there yet_

_15:51_

**_Wonwoo_ **

_I'd love to_

_15:52_

**_Mariano_ **

_See you at the shop at 5?_

"I think Wonwoo is here for his wedding suit," Robert teases him once he steps into the shop. How long has it been since he last stepped in here on a Saturday? With Mingyu's help in managing his time and how much his mind and body could take, he can't remember and he prefers it that way.

A light smack at his shoulder, Robert feigns the pain, pretends to soothe the barely-sore spot before Wonwoo opens his arms up and embraces him a good afternoon. He spends his rounds of greeting every person in the lobby, giving more than the words and smiles to those he stopped seeing around the floors as frequent. But he tries to cover his face with his hands at the small crowd emerging around the receptionist's desk, at the gasp of the ring on his finger, "When did this happen?"

The crowd fails at dispersing without a trace when the front doors open again, trickles in some snowflakes to melt inside and the sound of Mariano's booming voice failing to hide his laugh, "Don't pretend you weren't just standing there."

A pat at his shoulder, Mariano greets everyone as if he didn't frighten everyone just seconds ago. Mariano offers to drive him to the jewelry shop, to leave his car here in the shop. After bidding everyone goodbye so soon after his hellos, they make their way back to the parking garage. Mariano indulges himself into the history he knows about the shop he's about to take him, how the shop has been there for ages. Despite that, it's tucked away from the usual bustle of the city and the hustle of skyscrapers jeopardizing it out of the maps.

When he slips into his car, an odd whirl stirs into the pit of his stomach. The last time he sat in this car, in this passenger's seat, Wonwoo's life and circumstances juxtapose his present, everything life blessed him now. The last time he found himself in this car, he couldn't spare a syllable to Seoyeon without a tear from both screens, without guilt numbing both ends of the call to a dead-end and the entire conversation fading out to mute.

He tells himself to ignore that part of the past, to remind himself of the contrast of his life, and how much he and Seoyeon grew from that moment on. "Is there something different about that shop from all the ones you've been to?"

"They do custom rings there so if you like a ring but want to change the smallest thing, they can do it for you on the spot." Mariano shrugs, eases the car in front of a red light. "It's how I got my wife's ring."

He blinks, eyes heading straight for Mariano's hand on the steering wheel. A ring circles his finger, nothing flashy with a huge diamond. In fact, the diamond in the center is the only thing on the silver band. But all the times he stepped into Mariano's office, his eyes never picked up on a picture of his wife anywhere. Or any pictures at all.

"Did your wife get your ring from there, too?"

A quiet chuckle cools down his ignorance of his boss' life. "She did. I didn't know until I came into the shop and the lady at the counter said she thought I met her before. It was my first time there, though. Then she said my wife was there before I was. And my wife showed her a picture of us."

"I don't think I ever met your wife," Wonwoo admits, his voice choking down the regret in his words. He scans Mariano's face for a reaction and not for the specks of snow sliding down his window.

Mariano nods. "You're right; you never met her."

The quaint shop Mariano parks in front of reminds him of front newspaper articles from decades ago. Old-fashioned awnings, striped in white and pale blue, hang above the windows at either sides of the door. And inside, he notes out the display signs teeming in twinkles despite the descending sun and deepening clouds.

"It should be open." He glances at Mariano, at the hours posted on the window, then at his hands on the steering wheel, both of them tightening around the leather. "Maybe the lady is still there after all these years."

The shop is much warmer than it looks from the outside. With light wooden counters, bordering the glass and protecting rings and necklaces below, he would have never guessed such a humble place would sell jewelry if he never read the signs. After bidding the kind lady at the front hello, passes by Mariano's "You're still here?" to her, he dodges shoulders past their conversation and heads for the rings.

As he strays away from over-the-top rocks of diamond, how the prices march on like phone numbers under the glass, Mariano surveys around the shop, hands crossed behind his back, walking time through every shelf and rack, every picture hanging on the wall and propped up in frames on the counter. All the while, he thinks Mingyu doesn't need the biggest ring to be happy. Having a ring is fine, though he can hear Mingyu at the back of his mind fail to convince him that he doesn't need a ring. A moderate shine in the center, nothing too brash at the eyes.

When his steps retrace him back to this one ring, he stops himself from interrupting the lady hugging Mariano, thinks she might be the same lady he mentioned in the car.

Despite the velvet box in his hand and the lady's name barely forgotten at his lips, he thanks Mariano, for the thousandth time, for taking him there and for helping him discover even _the_ place to find the ring. He's about to thank Mariano again when he notes the disquiet in the car, the keys still at his lap.

"Is everything okay?" Wonwoo treads.

He shakes his head, succumbs it with a, "Yeah, it's fine." His eyes trance themselves farther than the shop right in front of them. But the long looks for something might not be in the shop. His lips work out the words, anyway, "She...she passed away before you started working in the shop."

Wonwoo swallows hard, and the velvet box sinks heavier in his lap. Something drops from the center of his chest and fills up the space with air he can breathe in but needs to force himself to. He tells himself to breathe, breath, _just one breath is okay for now_. Somehow, when he compels that single word into his temporary thought process, it's Mingyu's voice telling him to breathe. But now, the absence of pictures in Mariano's office makes sense, how Mariano never mentioned her until this one particular occasion.

He finally takes in a breath, slow, the only thing driving his troubled, "I'm so sorry" into the open.

Mariano shakes his head, says there's nothing to be sorry for, but the drop skating down his cheek tells him otherwise. "She didn't want anyone to feel guilty."

"She seems like a lovely person to know," Wonwoo adds on quietly.

"She really was. More than lovely." Mariano starts up the car, coughs out the roughs in his throat. Guilt kicks him in the ribs for miniscule pieces he could have known, how he didn't know anything at all about the person right in front of him and for the majority of his days in this city. He loses the staring contest out the window at his side when Mariano speaks up. "She designed the dresses at the shop. The classic collection there is all hers."

He thumbs off the tear in his eye. The classic collection there is the only one he can pick out with no hesitation among the hundreds of dresses there because those dresses are the only ones that don't change, that don't rotate once the reason turns. They have been on display in and out of the shop the longest, have been there before he even shook hands with Mariano to talk about the possible space he could take up, the new service he could bring to the shop that not many look for when it pertained to weddings, the room near the entrance of the shop that eventually became his office.

It's the collection his memory piques when he took his first tour around the shop. It was the very collection Mariano delved into deeper than the superficiality of what he could read from the online catalog--the designer, neckline, and silhouettes. Mariano ran his thumbs over the crystals and how many there were, the number of hours spent on each dress and the names of who worked on this dress. Mariano recalled the different versions of the dress that could have been brought to the world and what the designer finalized, coursing fingertips along delicate lace designs or intricate alterations that played off into the original design.

Mariano summoned stories of the dresses that weren't just about the dresses themselves. He went through his most memorable clients donning these dresses. There was that one about affixing a separate train to make sure the woman in the wheelchair can go down the aisle with no worry of the wheels running the dress over. Another of a woman overcoming the anxiety attack of the dress not fitting and the promises of ensuring alterations would be done the week of her wedding day. The one about the first time a client scheduling appointment for suits and returning years later for an appointment for a dress from the classic collection.

At that day, his first day around the shop, he wondered why Mariano went ocean-deep with the history of those dresses. He wondered why this collection brought out the most memories held inside and the most stories to be told. But now, it all makes sense why it came to be that way.

And it feels like a crime that he never knew who designed those dresses, though, of all his years working there. He doesn't let those emotions show up, though, and fills up the silence with an honest, "I never knew she was a designer." His words break down to a whisper. "Those dresses are really beautiful."

Mariano taps his fingers on the steering wheel too upbeat for the direction of their conversation, perhaps in the rhythm of nerves or drowning in them. "When we got married, she kept her surname, so it wasn't obvious."

"I'm really sorry, Mariano," he drops it down on both of them again, as if they're the only words he knows. He thinks he's not worthy of holding the ring in his hands, the ring for Mingyu.

"It's nothing to be sorry for, Wonwoo." Mariano tries to smile, to really pry out the meaning in those words. But the smile flies past them in a second. "There was nothing we could do about it." At the red light, he pipes back up. "I went to all the shops you did for a ring, and I didn't find a single one I liked. Then I went to that one and found it, even if I asked them to change something."

He overturns his words of apology into "Thank you for helping me find the ring, Mariano." An offer of where to eat, at least to let him pay back for the gas and taking him to where he needed to be, Mariano smiles and it doesn't falter this time.

At his first step inside, the hole-in-the-wall ramen place settles awful in his heart. The last time they called for a table at this restaurant, Wonwoo still wasn't in his best state of mind or circumstances. But Mariano wanted to eat something warm, something comforting after a draining day.

"You look just like me when I proposed," Mariano pipes up as Wonwoo holds out two fingers for a table. "Nervous but excited."

After they sit down and the server comes in with their bowls, boiled egg on the side, and sheets of seaweed, Wonwoo asks, if Mariano doesn't mind, for stories about his wife. It's a completely different side of Mariano that he never saw before. He loves the little stories of the couples he meets along the way. But with this particular story, the teardrops make their ways to their broths. A quick thumb of it off before Mariano continues what he began in the car, Wonwoo places his spoon and chopsticks down, perches his chin at his hands. They don't care that the other customers around give them one-overs of questionable happenings and never again after.

"She spent her days in the hospital wishing she could see the runways in the shop," he picks up from their conversation in the car. "I kept telling her later, when she gets better, but-" he inhales one deep breath, shatters the calm of the restaurant. They let the moment soak up the words he meant to say, and Wonwoo holds out his hand over the table. He gives Mariano's hand a light squeeze. "She did design some in the hospital room, but even holding the pencil made her tired. But she still had that drive to design in her." He nods solemnly, clasps his hands together in front of him. 

Wonwoo stays quiet the entire time. There's a light in Mariano's eyes, sparks different than the ones under the spotlights of runways or bright lights at podiums when he consults a client. Because even with the tears in his eyes, clinging onto his jaw and dripping into his bowl and all he does is grab a napkin from the dispenser and wipe it right off, there's still a light at his eyes, sparkling and undying since the moment they seated themselves.

The warm shower abandons his skin when he slips into fresh pajamas and another one of Mingyu's sweatshirts. He calls his parents, making sure to hold the ring up to the camera so that it's the first thing they see the second they accept the call. He listens to his mother lightly smack at his father's shoulder at his joking "What is that?" and the cheek-bursting smile on her face when she says, "Look at that ring."

His parents situate themselves at the bench just outside of the apartment. His mother sways and a second after, his father follows the beat.

"What a nice ring," his father comments, fixes his glasses upright to examine the ring better. "I can see Mingyu wearing that."

"I can see Mingyu smiling at the ring," his mother adds on.

Wonwoo closes up the box and puts it down, places it not too far from his laptop's corner. He smiles at the ring, at the number of miles and jewelry stores it took just to search for that one ring.

His father switches the view to show the world from Changwon's eyes, where the winter is still a bath of white and the other bench besides them cakes itself in snow. An uncertain figure in the distance at first, he outlines his brother running back and forth across the field. His ears pick up at Yerin's voice screaming, "Come back here, you got snow up my nose!"

"I think I'll let Yerin and Bohyuk talk to you later," his father laughs, warms up his heart and everything else around them between Changwon and New York City. "Bohyuk just threw a snowball at her face."

"Again?"

He sheds the mask of his smile from talking to his parents the second he presses on Mingyu's name. When Mingyu answers the call, he can't stop the tears from beading at the bottom of his vision. He doesn't try to hide it from Mingyu, doesn't want to hide anything from him.

The smile drags down the corners into a frown, ripples from his face when his eyes go from the sink below him and back up to his phone. A "What happened?" and "Do you want to talk about it?" and "Seoyeon is with her cousins for today, so..."

His lungs burn keeping the cry inside and his shoulders tremble as he pulls his knees up to the seat and presses his forehead at the flat of his knees. He starts off with searching for a ring and Mariano offering to show him a shop he's never been to before. He doesn't even reach the part in which Mariano informs him of his wife's passing when he notices Mingyu dragging his thumb at the inner corners of his eyes already. And Mingyu is unhindered the second he succumbs to his lungs begging to breathe with a cry. He silently wishes Mingyu was here with him.

And when he does let the words of "passed away" and "I didn't know," they sit in their silence, letting them sink in. He catches the time on his laptop screen, and his voice shrinks when he asks a vulnerable, "Can you keep this call up? At least until I get to bed?"

"Of course," Mingyu whispers, patting his eyes with a tissue. "I'll wait for you to sleep."

He slips into bed, curls up under the blanket, and even with Mingyu's pixelated presence transferred to his phone when he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer, his lungs still burn to stop himself from crying. "There's so much I didn't know," he whispers against his pillow.

But Mingyu advises him that it really is okay not to know, especially if it's something Mariano kept away from him this whole time.

\----

The following morning, his head aches trying to recall what Mingyu talked about last night when he offered to talk about something else, to ease his mind off heavy matters. A message from Mingyu left unread, he opens it up to a screenshot of himself sleeping with his face tucked into the hood of Mingyu's sweatshirt, his glasses riding up to his forehead.

_00:28_

**_Mingyu_ **

_Please tell me your glasses didn't break_

He chuckles, nose clogged up and eyes puffed out from last night. His glasses survive past his pillows, knocking into the bedframe at every move he makes. He takes a picture of the glasses above him, making sure to have a little peak of his squinting eyes at noon-break's light. He messages Mingyu back a thank you and a confirmation that his glasses remain intact after last night.

\----

The first sunrise of March trickles down to Wonwoo asking what Mingyu would want for his birthday. He can't dismiss his "Coming here for Seoyeon's birthday is already more than I can ask for _my_ birthday.”. His heart beats empty-handed because as much as he tries to convince him _not_ to do anything for his birthday, he wants to do something. Even the smallest thing.

Keying himself into his office, Monday shakes his heart weary. He doubts he can look at Mariano straight in the eyes after this weekend and all that he learned. But when he unlocks his office and beelines for his desk, there's a gentle pat on his back and a smile off Mariano's face before he turns around and nears the stairs.

During his break, he props up his office doors with the _Will Be Back!_ sign, open to anyone who passes by just to say to him as he goes about his lunch. And today, it's Mariano knocking on the doorframe with a bag in his hand. Wonwoo gestures for the chair at the other side of his desk, where clients would take the seat. He clears up his desk of notebooks and planners, his keyboard and mouse. He pats the now-vacant space, tells Mariano he should put his lunch there.

The lunch begins off wordless as Mariano's eyes flit above his takeout and Wonwoo's own eyes, towards the photos tacked, taped, or tucked at the walls. Wonwoo lets him spend as much time as he needs to soak up the pictures and eat off his own metal container of rice. After a wipe of his lips with the napkin, he perks up at something behind him.

"Seoyeon, right?" Wonwoo smiles at his recollection, nods more at his bowl and spoon than at the question. "Even though these are pictures, she looks so lively. Like any minute, these pictures will move."

Wonwoo ducks his chin to his chest at his remark. He's not wrong, and he's not the only one who thought that way. Seoyeon carries an extra life in her, and Wonwoo knows somehow, sometime since he met her, there seems to be a flourish into his days than ever before. "She really is."

A ripple of fondness all over Mariano's face, soft corners of his eyes and the smile lifting up a slight. It's one he often notices on his own father growing up. "Tell me about them."

His eyes wander, almost for an answer. He admits he doesn't know where to start when it comes to talking about Mingyu and Seoyeon. And that same ripple of fondness returns when his eyes land on his, accompanies a protective smile. There's the closeness of talking to his friend, not his boss, not the person who shook his hand and signed the papers to let him thrive off these four walls.

"How old is Seoyeon? Did she like you right away?"

His hand reaches for his phone and he scrolls to that one picture back in Minghao's apartment, the two of them sitting at the counter and letting all the colors get into the wrong lines. He hands his phone over to Mariano and he accepts his phone with a smile.

"She's turning nine in May, and this was when she was five?"

"She grew up a lot." The love in his eyes is one he can associate with a father's love to a child, not exactly his own. Wonwoo wonders if he ever looks at Seoyeon that same way. "You love her a lot," Mariano says quietly, "Seoyeon."

He shrugs. There's still some way to go because he hasn't loved her enough, not like the way Mingyu does, not the way her aunts and uncles besides her in Seoul do. "I wish I was there for her more. I've been in her life for only four years."

"Wonwoo," Mariano starts, returning his phone, "even though you came into her life late, you've been with her for half of it already. When she gets older, she'll think you've been there her entire life."

\----

At the nearing of his dinnertime, he clicks through calendars and calendars on his laptop, swipes through pictures that clients sent him from seasons ago. Meanwhile, Mingyu clicks through rendering effect after rendering effect, swipes through pictures of build sites and snapshots of meetings. Despite Mingyu's birthday at his corner of the universe, Wonwoo heeds to his request of not doing anything special for his day, that he would just love to spend his day like he normally does. And when Saturday arrives, he'd want to spend it this way, with nothing special going on.

"As much as I want to go out with the guys," Mingyu shrugs, "work was so tiring this week."

The fact that Wonwoo's birthday greeting at the beginning second of the call dims away with the mouse clicks and keyboard taps, the wrangling of the drawing tablet and stylus, he thinks Mingyu really does need that day of doing close to nothing special.

He watches his face wash into colors of blue, white, and green all over. It wasn't his intention to call Mingyu in the middle of his cubicle, not long after settling down in the building that morning. Mingyu continues the call, brushing off his worries of his boss popping up out of nowhere and seeing him distracted, "Does it look like I'm distracted?" with a cheeky grin.

"You know what I mean," Wonwoo mutters.

"I just came in and barely anyone is here yet." Mingyu peers down to his phone, as if they're sitting across from each other. "I finally put a new picture in here."

It's the first time Wonwoo steals a glimpse of Mingyu's workplace that isn't blurred voices in the middle of a meeting or the work he lugs home. A wide monitor flashes a dark gray program and in it, for a split second, Wonwoo picks out the inner workings of a building. Right next to the pixels, there's a wire cup of pencils and pens, sticking up at jagged heights. Sticky notes pasted onto the walls of his cubicle. He picks out the train of phone numbers and dates on the fluorescence. But between those, his eyes make out the stick figures and Seoyeon's handwriting marked up on the same color of sticky notes.

The thought leaves hanging in his mind and Mingyu picks it up, as if he understands his words without needing to say them. The camera focuses on a sticky note of Seoyeon's. The circle in the middle grins at him and the ovals surrounding it, a _Spring is here!!!_ under the flower she drew. A second of the stick figures, a short one with long hair and two tall stick figures. One of the stick figures wears circular glasses, and Mingyu doesn't need to explain what that picture is supposed to represent.

Framed in glasses all around is a single picture besides the monitor, between the cubicle wall and a paper organizer. It's the three of them crowded into a single shot, the Christmas tree in his apartment lit up. With Seoyeon between the two of them, closing in more against Wonwoo's chest, Mingyu's arm reaches out to capture the picture. With Mingyu's head leaning into his, their temples nearly pressing against each other, Seoyeon brightens the picture with that gap of her teeth.

Mingyu drags a finger over the corner of the frame, perhaps to thumb off some dust, and admits this is the only picture he has framed. He raises his phone up in the air, and he maps out the pictures strewn all over his cubicle walls. Between sticky notes and key hooks, prints of outlines and what Wonwoo discerns as Seoyeon's school schedule.

"I have to go," Mingyu whispers. He turns the camera back to him, showcases the pout at his lips. "Promise me you won't go out of your way and buy something for my birthday?" Wonwoo's eyes wander somewhere else and he pretends to lose himself in contemplation. " _Wonwoo_ ," he tests him.

He sighs and surrenders. "I promise."

Mingyu sets the phone back down on the table. "Just a video call is all I ask for."

He tells himself that a video call is okay. Nothing too grand for a birthday, but with Mingyu's "I can't wait for Saturday," he seems to like that idea better. Mingyu's eyes space out beyond the computer screen. "Wait, it'll be Friday for you."

\----

When Friday's shift turns him into his apartment, he sheds off the spring in his hair and nighttime dusting at his bones. A mere re-baking of leftovers from a couple days ago, he situates himself at the dining table, laptop running in front of him and cursor hovering over Mingyu's name for a video call. When he picks up the call, the ceiling welcomes him with mumbling and a _snap_ against skin. A shuffle of the ceiling fan and sliding across the table, the counter, possible Seoyeon's workbooks, Mingyu comes to view with a birthday tiara on his head and Seoyeon by his side, smile following her fingertips playing with the fake pink feathers fanning out.

He wonders what inspired Seoyeon to buy a tiara this time until she notices a miniature version at her hair, seemingly clipped at the top of her combed hair in their early morning. She lifts another tiara in the air, another one of Mingyu's, "We have one for you, too."

He thanks Seoyeon for buying him a tiara, for thinking about him even when he's so far away and she's oblivious to the plans of her birthday.

And with their daybreak settles down and Wonwoo's eyes mapping out the first hints of constellations at his end, extravagance is nothing they seek for today, even if it's Mingyu's thirty-seventh birthday. Between Seoyeon scratching her head at her homework, walking up to Mingyu in the midst of rendering his project, and him and Mingyu working on a problem together with her, he wonders if this is what life would offer them once they cross the distance. A Saturday spent doing their own thing but falling into place in the ways to include everyone. From Mingyu asking Seoyeon what kind of tree he should put in front of the house to turning his phone and showing Wonwoo what she picked. From her shy "Cherry blossoms remind me of Dad" to Mingyu's "They remind me of him, too." From Wonwoo asking Seoyeon about the stories she read recently to her scurrying behind the chair and returning with a hardcover and a workbook over her head to show him all.

He would love to be at their end of the call. If their Saturdays are like this, he wouldn't mind it at all. He can't bring himself to count the possible days, _years_ it would take for their weekends to be just like this.

Eventually, their call narrows focus down to Seoyeon opening cabinets for snacks and Mingyu rubbing at his stomach more than the strain at his eyes, their lunchtime meets in the middle with Wonwoo's bedtime.

And for the first time in a long time, he dreams. He dreams of Seoul mornings and Changwon afternoons, and the bitterness of the distance doesn't wake him up.

\----

The lines of April and May meet up in a whiplash of the calendar and the clock. When Mingyu's name vibrates on his nightstand, two in the morning punches him in worry. He's positive Mingyu is aware about their time difference by now and the fact that it's in the middle of the night from miles and miles away. It's been so long since Mingyu called him in the middle of the night, ignoring the one he forgot about the wrong hours after landing back home. It might be another one in which he finds out Seoyeon is in the hospital again, or Jihye called earlier and it was the only way to tell him soon without Seoyeon eavesdropping on accident and putting two and two together. Maybe something about his work, Seoyeon's school, or an incident with Minseo's or Seungcheol's kids. Whatever it may be, he sits up on his bed and accepts the call.

He sighs in relief when the pixels clear up to Seoyeon sitting at Mingyu's desk. With the camera high above the table, her white collared shirt is evident on his screen, but her periwinkle pajama pants peek through. He rubs the leftover dreams at his eyes, coughs out the sleep in his throat, and asks if she just came home from school.

She nods and from this angle, he traces the white ribbon tying her high ponytail together. Wonwoo turns the lamp beside him, slides his glasses on. "I made a card and a carnation for you. Daddy said you like the color purple more than blue, so I made a purple one for you."

Waking up at two in the morning is worth it and more.

He swallows the guilt down his throat when he remembers he hasn't moved her last Parents' Day card she made for him from under his bed. He should bring it out later in the day so that when they see each other again, his wall in his office or his bedside protects his doubts with them. But pushing that aside, with a smile on Seoyeon's face and the white card in her hand, purple carnation in her other, he thanks her for making a card and folding a carnation for him, admits that he can't wait to see her so he can read the card to her. "What color did you pick for your dad?"

She holds up a red carnation "because that's his favorite color." She sets the flowers and the cards below the view just as a pout comes through. "I asked Daddy if I can fold carnations for all my uncles and aunts and grandmas and grandpas. He said it's a lot to make, but I said it's because I have a lot of uncles and aunts and grandmas and grandpas."

He considers turning his laptop on and booking a flight to Seoul at this second. It may cost him a few hundred bucks, at least two days' worth of clients to reschedule and send apology emails to, and maybe Mingyu dousing his surprise trip in entire disbelief. But for a second, he throws the logic out of his sight because he wishes he can hold her face in his hands, kiss the top of her head. He wishes to have her right beside him to tackle her in a hug and maybe a thousand kisses all over her face. Because after everything the world throws at her, he wonders why the world dropped every bit of sweetness into Seoyeon when bringing her here.

"The carnations you made are so pretty," he comforts the slight frown at her lips. "I'm sure they will like it."

"When Daddy is done with work, he'll buy me some more paper."

Supposing Mingyu's office still holds him in there, he asks if she's home alone, if she is fine being in the apartment by herself. But she shakes her head. She picks up the card again and waves it between her fingertips.

"Uncle Seokmin is in the bathroom. When he picked me up, he bought fishcakes and I want to eat them with him."

His heart sinks sound to have people like Seokmin a constant in her life, and he's even more sound when the first thing he sees of Seokmin is the beam at his face once his eyes fall on Seoyeon. And when Wonwoo makes out the Mickey Mouse symbol at the pocket of his scrubs, his doubts of a brighter Seokmin dissipate as his eyes beam out his smile for him.

Seokmin drapes an arm at the backrest of the chair and cranes his head lower to the screen. "Wonwoo, eat with us!"

But when Seokmin straightens up and pulls out his phone, he sputters at the screen. "Wait, Wonwoo, shouldn't you sleep?" At his hour of the world in the air, he catches the way Seoyeon sits at the seat, eyes expecting a reaction out of Seokmin with a smile dripping of innocence. Seokmin turns back to the screen. "You should go back to sleep."

But he shakes his head because the day of Seoul keeps his spirit awake, enough to tackle the night of New York City. Seokmin tucks his phone away and with his hands cupping her face, he tilts her head up a slight. "I think you woke your dad up."

Seoyeon giggles under his palms, at the assumption and the gentle pat of her cheek. Seokmin offers to continue the call running on his phone so they can bring Wonwoo to the dining table and share a meal together. During the mute lapse of turning Mingyu's computer off and waiting for whenever Seokmin is ready to call him back, he pushes his blanket to the side and flips the light switches on his way to the kitchen counter. With his breakfast waiting for him in a few hours and dinner not much longer before this, he doesn't prepare anything to eat with them. He sits at the counter with the planner in his hands and the day ahead.

When Seokmin's name revives the pixels this time, he accepts the call and props his phone against a mug left forgotten and behind the dishes from last night. He watches them from the dining table and Seokmin's gasp at the number of pots waiting for them there. A black plastic bag, knotted at the handle, is placed between the pots and Seoyeon's face, her two hands freeing the bag and letting her come to his view.

If he orients himself in Mingyu's apartment correctly, Seokmin most-likely set his phone up at the end of the table facing the kitchen. Seoyeon marks a path back and forth between the kitchen and the table, pulling draws and cabinets open. All the while, Seokmin brings pots one by one to the stove, clicks it on to reheat each dish.

Seokmin grabs a ladle, stirs the pot. "I wonder if he knew you would call your dad." Seoyeon shrugs, skips a little on her way to the dining table with utensils, bowls, and cups of water for two.

"Is this routine for you and Seoyeon to do?" Wonwoo asks out of the blue. Seoyeon seems to know what to do without her uncle telling her anything, besides the occasional, "Is this too spicy for you?" and holding the ladle to her lips with his cupped hand under her chin.

"I guess we can call it that." Seokmin turns away from the pot and to him, smile at his lips and his eyes drifting back to him above the pot. "I usually work from six to three now, then I pick Seoyeon up and stay with her until Mingyu comes home." 

With Seoyeon's words of gratitude for the meal, Seokmin thanks her, too, for setting up the table and tasting the broth as it cooked. As they eat, Seoyeon offers a spoonful of her rice to the screen and as if he's sitting beside her, he leans into the camera, pretends to lean closer to her, and opens his mouth, pretends to have a bite. Seoyeon smiles small and eats the spoonful for him. All pretend because that’s the truth about distance.

They barricade her with questions about school--how it was today, if she learned anything new, what the school served for lunch today. At the mention of someone sneezing, Seokmin advises her to wash her hands and not to share her lunch with the person, just in case they might be contagious. And at Seoyeon's "We're reading a new book today," Wonwoo's ears perk up with her synopsis of the first few chapters and how she read ahead because she wanted to know what happened next.

"She's just like you, Wonwoo," Seokmin pipes up between chews.

Seoyeon smiles at the camera, admits she's almost done with the book and "It's so hard not to tell my classmates what happened."

He runs sleepy fingers through his sleepy hair. "You have to keep it a secret for now."

"Seoyeon." Seokmin finishes the broth in his bowl. He offers to scoop some more for Seoyeon and once she holds up her own bowl to the pot, under the ladle steaming from the stew, he continues on the thought, "This is early, but what do you want for your birthday?"

Seoyeon thanks him for another serving and the extra slices of tofu this time. Her lips scrunch off to the side, but her voice settles quiet. With one nervous glance at the camera, his heart stills for her, and his ears barely pick up her waning, hesitant "I want my dad to come to my birthday."

At the rub of her eyes, he's grateful Seokmin is by her side. He stands up, pushes his chair until it's millimeters from hers, and pulls her to his side. He cradles the side of her face to his chest, soothes down her hair. A thumb for the tear at her eye, he assures her that, "You'll see your dad soon, Seoyeon."

A ring of the doorbell and the click of the door open, Seoyeon digs herself into Seokmin even more, and Wonwoo just wants to break that promise of a surprise to tell her that he _is_ coming for her birthday, that she didn't even have to say that wish out in the open for it to come true.

A call of "Seoyeon? sends a whimper from her throat and her peering the corner of her eye from Seokmin's arms. Wonwoo feels awful that no words are coming out--to break the surprise that she doesn't need to say that wish once more for it to happen, their usual hopeful wishes of meeting one day soon like all their other times, or possible plans of a plane ticket to New York City instead.

When he hears Mingyu's voice again, a second call for her name, it's met with Seokmin lifting his arms and letting her drag her shoulders and feet up to her father, wrap her arms around his waist. A sob into his jacket and a glance up to Seokmin's phone, Mingyu hugs her, rocks her left and right, and asks what happened. A shake of her head against his shirt, Mingyu kisses the top of her head and unties the ribbon at her hair. He frees her hair down past her shoulders.

"I asked her what she wanted for her birthday," Seokmin explains sullen, "and she said she wanted her dad to come for her birthday."

"Oh," is a painful kind realization. "It's kind of hard for him to come here because of his work, but I can ask him."

He feels helpless sitting behind the screen as Seokmin finishes his bowl and apologizes for making her cry. Seoyeon shakes her head but doesn't let a word pass by when she hugs her Uncle Seokmin.

Seokmin squeezes her one more time and promises they can have fishcakes again tomorrow, "And I'll take you to the shop with me this time, Seoyeon. How does that sound?"

She rubs her wrist at her nose, but her smile mimics a humble smile, her teeth showing along the curves of her lips. "I like that," she agrees.

With the call ending to let it continue onto Mingyu's phone, Wonwoo bids Seokmin a goodbye, a thank you for letting him join in their meal.

"No, thank _you_ , Wonwoo, for still being up for the call." Seokmin chuckles, tying a bag of food Mingyu prepared to take home to Soonyoung. "I forgot it's nighttime there when it's in the middle of the day here. I'm guessing it happens a lot if you answered it right away."

He shrugs and once they all bid Seokmin a goodbye, Seoyeon in particular tiptoeing to peck him once on the cheek, Mingyu asks if she wants to talk about what happened and what made her cry. The third shake of her head this time, Mingyu's nod of understanding, Wonwoo sighs and tells her that if she wants to talk about it, she can talk to him, too.

\----

With his last client bidding him a safe vacation, his eyes refuse to leave the printed plane ticket sitting at his desk under the keyboard. It may be his third trip back home since he moved, but he can't pinpoint why this time sends a flutter at his heart. It may be because it's for Seoyeon this time, that this trip came to be solely for Seoyeon and celebrating her birthday with her. Perhaps it is Seoyeon wishing he could celebrate her birthday with him after he expressed this same wish to Mingyu.

  
  


With his bags double-checked and waiting for the morning at the door, he rolls in his bed, too excited for sleep's content to poke at him this night. Jet fuel into his veins and impatience wearing to a needle-point that in less than a day, he will be with Mingyu and Seoyeon. In less than a day, he will be with the people he can call his family, his _home_ outside of his parents and brother. In less than a day, he will be with the people he loves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *queue poor unfortunate souls*
> 
> also if one of the pictures sound familiar, it's because it's a reference to [the picture sua took of him](https://twitter.com/MIN9YUA/status/1102150198019612672?s=20)
> 
> ahhh!! i forget to mention when i first posted this but the place wonwoo's coworker bought him food from is a reference to real place in manhattan called [acuario cafe!](https://youtu.be/u1h-jPizdv4)
> 
> but thank you for reading!! if you like to question with me why they're still not living under the same roof, you can scream with me on [tumblr](http://seokmins-thighs.tumblr.com), [twitter](https://twitter.com/_miniinfinity), or [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/miniinfinity)


	2. 2034

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first day Wonwoo returns to Seoul, he smiles at the new pictures lining up under the television and the definition of spring whenever he looks at Mingyu. He can't help himself from dropping kisses onto the crown of Seoyeon's head and the summer at her cheeks whenever he holds her close. It's just his first day, but it's already different from his past first days.
> 
> And their first morning together comprises of wondering how Seoyeon grows up so fast before their eyes as she prepares for school. Their second night, though, comprises of a couple of firsts for Wonwoo among the hundreds he's witnessed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no **warnings** this time!! except, like always, my writing sdfkljdlk. the word count is getting less and less compared to the actual fic sldkfjd oh boy
> 
> if you read this before may 11, i combined ch 2 and ch 3 together because i lowkey miss long chapters sdlfkjd

Daybreak in the early afternoon flourishes in sunlight--off push carts of luggage, paving down squeaky white tiles soon to be marked by an arriving flight after his, refracting him blind for a split second whenever the sliding doors close and open back up. The flight broke his regular sleep hours and with his slumber clinging onto its bare minutes, he only hopes he doesn’t look as exhausted as the flight should make him not to be. His eyelids back be pleading to shut and he finds himself blinking hard against the sunlight. He may be a mess from the eighteen-hour flight and the fact that he spent most of that time on his laptop, trying to round his stories for Seoyeon back to his memories, but he really can’t fall asleep now.

If he allows himself to delve into the truth, as he waits for Mingyu’s text, meeting Seoyeon and Mingyu again leaves his wonderment driving out the horizon. He thinks he can truly sleep once he falls into that expanse of the bed, perhaps before Seoyeon comes home from school or he shares the sheets with Mingyu in what’s supposed to be a short nap tricking their minutes into actual hours. With Mingyu’s text messages of arriving at the airport and looking for a parking spot, his mind travels the possibilities and changes of Mingyu’s home and Seoyeon herself as of now, since the last time he saw them.

Did Mingyu display new pictures under the television? How about the ones strung across Seoyeon’s walls? Seoyeon must have grown over the past months, but how much is he willing to accept that she’s reaching close to his shoulders? He questions if Mingyu asked for a few days off from work. Even with some days where he has to bid him goodbye at the door, he would never mind staying back and spending time with Seoyeon. Are Seoyeon and Mingyu still wearing the shirts and sweatshirts he left behind or the ones they forgot to tell him about? Can the three of them even _count_ those accidental switches of shirts and sweatshirts?

The train of thoughts halt through the sliding doors to anxious loved ones and long-awaited returns. One quick scan across the grounds, he can’t pick out Mingyu’s head hovering above everyone else’s. Maybe he’s still wandering his car for a parking spot.

He steers himself towards the exit doors and stands by the row of seats lining up the glass walls. He weighs the option of stepping outside and waiting for Mingyu there, perhaps to have him drive up to the curb and wave him off instead before he drives off any further.

The shoes above his phone stop him from furthering that option, though, a pair he remembers at his shoe rack some months ago. He slows his eyes up at the black pair of Oxfords that took a trip into his apartment. Right hand in the pocket of dark blue jeans and donning a silver watch. His eyes falter their way up to the familiar shirt long-gone from his closet in New York, and the smile on Mingyu’s face when their eyes do meet.

“Hi,” is shy, quiet compared to their conversations in the light, in the dark, and everything in between. If he thought of Mingyu teasing him for his first words upon that surreptitious trip for the weekend, his probing for Seoyeon’s whereabouts, then he thinks it’s only fair that he can tease Mingyu about this.

His cheeks ache for the smile and his futile attempts at hiding it. He wonders if it started at the shirt. Maybe it started at the shoes.

His “Hi” mirrors in the bashful air.

Perhaps it started before he even stepped into the airplane.

When Wonwoo opens the passenger’s seat to Mingyu’s car, his eyes fall at the cup of coffee beside the iced tea, paper bag with something sweet sitting there instead of an actual passenger. Another paper bag and plastic cup in the cupholder in the backseat, Mingyu explains his brimming excitement about driving to the airport and picking him up that he completely skipped breakfast. But halfway to the airport, in the middle of the freeway, he couldn’t stop his stomach from growling. A stop at the coffee shop wouldn’t hurt the time it takes to reach the airport. A little something for Wonwoo, another little something for Seoyeon, he merely hopes that they will like what he bought.

Wonwoo thanks him for buying him something, that he even remembers his switch to tea rather than coffee.

Five seconds after closing the door, he learns that driving home is going to be a challenge for the both of them. A peck at his cheek startles the return of breathlessness he hasn’t felt in months. He returns it with a peck at Mingyu’s own lips and the rush of innocence lingering from the kiss there manages to punch him dumbfounded that the ring at his hand is there and he doesn’t have to say the three words every time he kisses him. Letting the engine whir back up after five of those and as Mingyu backs up from the parking lot, it’s a peck at the back of his palm that flares the heat at his cheeks before Mingyu drops his hand back to the gear shift.

Stoplights become leeway for this challenge. After sips of tea and tilting his cup over to let Mingyu drink some, too, red lights are their saviors and an excuse for Wonwoo to bring Mingyu’s hand up to his lips, send a peck at his knuckles before leaving a long one at the center.

And greenlights become their enemies. It means untangling his hand from Mingyu’s so he can focus on driving, another game of patience before he can kiss him again. He’s not sure what it is this time, why he feels the need to kiss Mingyu at every chance on his very first day here. It might be the nonexistent chances in their months prior to this one or the fact that it brings a bashful smile on Mingyu’s face every time, and he wants to see it.

Either way, he loves it.

The sigh out his lips doesn’t reach far past the door closing and toeing shoes off, not when fingertips trickle down his cheeks and he can’t hide his smile against the kiss. When Mingyu pulls away, he can’t help himself from bringing him in for a second at his lips, a third to his forehead. A soundless press of their foreheads when Mingyu backs him up against the wall, Wonwoo traces his name out with his eyes and without the letters. He slips his hand up the back of his neck. Mingyu is warm to the touch, golden at his eyes, and sweet on his lips. The brink of summer rises up his neck, at his cheeks when they part out from the front door, Mingyu’s two fingers hanging onto his.

Under the television, more picture frames crowd the glass around Burj Khalifa and Shanghai Tower, needing to angle the frames into tighter wedges. Some pictures there are mere prints leaning onto the frames, as if Mingyu gave up buying frames, like he did long ago. Close to the recent end of the pictures, there are more of his face in the shots with Seoyeon and Minyu, right before it all ends with ones of Seoyeon with her friends at school or around the city.

His heart flutters light in his chest when he spots Central Park in the wintertime among the frames and Seoyeon tugging on his scarf. The sound of her laughter plays in his mind of that moment, when she meant to hold his hand.

It might be the season at their wake, but seeing Mingyu’s apartment at this time of the year, entering into his apartment without having their goodbye, goodnight, or good morning blurred in the pixels, hits different from his past visits here.

A lone flower pot stands at the kitchen counter and when Wonwoo points that out, Mingyu tickles his palm on his to bring him to Seoyeon’s bedroom. With the door wide open, he smiles at the flower pots lining up her winter sill and her table arranged to under the window. Jihoon’s telescope is knocked off its spot from the sill when the plants yearned for the sun more than the telescope. A green flower pot labeled _Geranium_ houses hints of the first leaves, and the rose gold pot dons _Echeveria (pretend rose)_.

“Seoyeon wanted to grow some plants,” Mingyu supplies as they step up to her window. He points at the succulent beginning to bloom light purple from the center. “She’s growing this one for you, so she didn’t want me to say anything about it.”

Wonwoo blinks, contradiction of his words and his actions winding in his brain for a moment. “But you just did?”

Mingyu’s eyes drain out of their earlier sparks as he stares at the window and contemplates on what he just did. The silence of realization hits him. “Can you pretend to be shocked when she shows it to you later?” earns a snort out his nose. He covers for Mingyu, reassures him that he will feign surprise at her plants when she leads him around her room in his supposed first tour here of the day.

They return back out to the hallway to save as much of the surprise in her room as possible. Mingyu mentions taking a shower since he had a long flight. Wordless tugs to the bedroom sends him sitting at the edge of the bed as Mingyu opens a drawer and a second to pull his clothes out.

“You can unpack later, Wonwoo,” Mingyu advises because “You must be so tired.”

He shrugs as Wonwoo places a folded pair of sweatpants he must have skipped a thought in packing back to New York. An oversized shirt he’s never seen before, he imagines the comfort of slipping into Mingyu’s clothes and letting the weight of his shoulders drag him into dreams. But he sighs, doubts he can stay awake before Seoyeon arrives home. “I am a little, but I think I really need the shower.”

Mingyu dedicates one hand to holding the pile of their bath towels and clothes and his other in finding Wonwoo’s amidst his eyelids batting the sleep away. Bathroom light slams brighter than the rest of the apartment at his eyes. Mingyu closes the toilet seat and sets their clothes there, hangs their towels on the bar. He mentions the guys coming for Seoyeon’s birthday on Saturday, that even Seungcheol and Chan are driving up to celebrate after he alludes to Wonwoo’s name in the chat.

“I’m not sure about Jisoo and Seungkwan, but I never force them to,” he continues on, crouching under the sink to grab a new toothbrush for him. Wonwoo nods, thinks this is the most he’ll ever see the guys together for the first time in years, more than a decade. It’ll be the most, and he doubts everyone will fit inside this apartment. An army of aunts and uncles, cousins and friends behind Seoyeon, the apartment is unthinkable to him at the moment, but then again, Mingyu hasn’t passed a word about her birthday plans.

“What time does Seoyeon finish school?” he asks as Mingyu slips his glasses off for him and runs slow fingers through his hair. He tilts his head into the touch, remedies the nights where Wonwoo wished he could do that.

“At three,” he tells him, doesn’t let the answer go without a peck at his lips, and he wakes up for a split second. “You can sleep before she comes home.” But not even skittering fingertips at his shirt wake him up, and he surrenders his shoulders limp when he asks, “Did you sleep in the plane?”

With Wonwoo blinking the sleep out his eyes more than the shower water, the bath curtains open back up faster than what he’s used to. Perhaps it’s Mingyu drawing the eye bags under his eyes better than he did at the mirror, the verge of sleep luring closer to them by the drops of water. After slipping into Mingyu’s clothes, the tug of his hand back to the room earns a sigh of relief when Mingyu guides him to the bed and has him sit down.

Slipping into Mingyu’s clothes feels closer to home than the ones left abandoned and forgotten in his own apartment. The sweatshirt he wears to sleep alone is not as comforting as the mere shirt Mingyu offers him after this shower. Dusting the hem from going too far from his collarbones, Mingyu’s careful hands soothe down the creases, soothe down the heavy worries in his heart.

Mingyu ruffles his hair under the towel and with his head dozing off to the side every time he lifts his hands off his scalp, he shakes his head when Mingyu offers to use Seoyeon’s hair dryer instead. Disturbing the peace and quietude of now with quickly drying his hair is far from what he wants. He opens his eyes and grabs Mingyu’s towel besides them, reaches up, and begins ruffling the drops from Mingyu’s hair.

“You don’t have to, Wonwoo,” Mingyu chuckles under the towel, soft hand around his arm and Mingyu’s thumb running over the bone there. And Wonwoo gives in and folds the towel at his lap in favor of placing his palm on Mingyu’s bent knee. He drags his own thumb back and forth across the bare skin beneath the shorts and listens to Mingyu’s breath slow down.

Once Mingyu returns to the bedroom after draping the towels to dry, he whispers a calm, “Do you want to sleep?” into their fingers slipping so easily over the sheets. He doesn’t need to answer, not when Mingyu guides him up the mattress and lies down before he does. He pats the open spot beside him, under his arm at the pillow, and Wonwoo slips under the covers. He crawls to Mingyu’s side, his arm coursing over Mingyu’s waist, and buries his head at his shoulder. He grasps the most of a touch long-missed as he can.

Minutes tick by the few, between Mingyu patting his shoulder and his voice latching onto sunbeams through the curtains, words spiralling into an unintended lullaby, for Wonwoo’s heart to relax for the world around him.

When he wakes up, the other side of the bed strikes in vacancy and darkness he thinks is desperation and the lonesome fooling him into. He wonders if he really did arrive in Seoul earlier in his day. He wonders if it’s missing Seoyeon and Mingyu too much that has him imagining it’s Seoul breaching behind the closed curtains to his side. He wonders if it’s the deception of his desires playing really well against him.

But it’s the fragrance on the pillow that doesn’t match the one he buys in the New York store, the sheets smoother all around him, and hints of cologne he knows the name of because of Mingyu. He stills in the darkness at the clock on the nightstand, not the blaring red he always wakes up to, but hints of rimmed silver that Mingyu kept all these years and sometimes he glances at in their video calls.

It’s the clicking of the stove punctuating occasional hums of a morning’s tune much too late to be called a morning’s tune. It’s the shirt that’s familiar to him in all his days following this one when Mingyu is the one wearing it. It’s the picture of Seoyeon, Mingyu, and him at his apartment in New York that assure him of a dream touched by reality.

He smiles against the plush, embraces it against his chest and the side of his face, when he hears Mingyu sneeze and curse at the black pepper. He smiles even more when he hears a second voice, Seokmin’s voice, reprimanding him for sneezing into his hand and never overcoming that habit.

He thinks tears sear at his eyes when the third voice comes to him. “Daddy, I thought you went to work,” Seoyeon speculates.

“I usually am at this time,” Mingyu begins, and it all drowns in the sizzling of the oil, “but I’m off today.”

A sharp gasp diverts the controversy of his day off when he voice racks in a serious tone. “What’s that bag over there?”

“What _is_ that bag for?” Seokmin follows along, tone mimicking Seoyeon’s down to the high-pitch at the end. They must have found his suitcase in the living room, left in the thrum of seeing everything he could in the apartment when he first arrived.

At Seoyeon listing possibilities of the suitcase’s purpose there, with Mingyu and Seokmin listening in with no interruptions nor corrections, he sits up on the bed and scratches his head. Rolling to Mingyu’s side of the bed to grab his glasses, he stretches his legs and sinks his face between the pillows. He pushes his glasses up his nose just as a yawn scolds him for not sleeping enough. The reach of his hands for the ceiling and crackles of his spine, he doesn’t stifle the groan.

Seoyeon stops the possibilities--the clothes for Yeeun and Yejoon to bring to Anyang, maybe her Uncle Junhui and Uncle Minghao brought food from another country--to ask, “What was that?”

He feels the wobble of his windswept hair when he rubs his eyes, airy chuckles escaping at Seoyeon’s cuteness so gentle to his heart. He leaves his hair untouched before stepping out into the hallway. And when the bedroom’s darkness washes away with the afternoon’s sun of the hallway, steps patter all through the floor and stop before his own steps, for the arms around his waist.

He pulls Seoyeon under his arms closer, cranes his head down to kiss the top of her head, and admits that he missed her. Sunlight lingers at her eyes when she peers up to him, arms still tight around his waist, and her voice squeaks at the last syllables when she asks what he’s doing here and not in New York, not so far away.

Wonwoo brings his hands up to her face, to brush her hair from her eyes and cup the brink of summer at her cheeks. The gap between her teeth is replaced by a bigger front tooth, jutting more forward than the others in line, just like Mingyu’s. “I missed you a lot, Seoyeon.”

His answer brings the side of her face against his chest, at the high stakes of having her hear the beats of his heart. “I missed you, too,” she confesses, her voice dropping low. “Are you going to be here for my birthday?”

“Of course,” he answers, landing one more kiss to the top of her head. He thinks one is not enough.

When she steps back, she secures his hand in hers, almost like a promise she won’t let this hug go just yet. She scans around for her Uncle Seokmin standing besides Mingyu at the stove, asking about the ingredients and noting that “This looks too spicy for Seoyeon.”

“Uncle Seokmin,” she calls out with a slight bounce at her steps. Seokmin averts all his attention from bickering with Mingyu to Seoyeon, eyes disappearing for the smile across his face. “My dad is here! Remember when I told you my birthday wish?”

Seokmin laughs with every ounce of joy. He turns back to the stove, though, and opens a cupboard. “Where is he?” earns a smack at the back of his shoulder from Mingyu.

Mingyu raises the container of black pepper to him. “Since you have it open, can you put this away?”

Seokmin drops the joke when Seoyeon pipes up, sticks by his side, “He’s right here.”

After packing a couple containers for Seokmin to take home, progressing almost to absolutely nowhere half-full as Seokmin and Seoyeon steal bites in between, Seokmin pretends to wipe the tear off his eye. “Sometimes, I wonder why your dad never opened a restaurant. I’d eat there every day.”

One lung-crushing yet welcomed hug from Seokmin has Wonwoo rocking back and forth under his arms. Seokmin feathers comfort and hands of ease. It might be the weather, from the energy of Seoyeon changing out of her school uniform. It might also be Seoyeon calling out to him to wait for her to finish before he leaves the door. He just can’t place a finger on the bridge of spring and summer, but everything is so warm to him.

When Seokmin realizes it’s nearing time for Soonyoung to return home from work, he waves them off one last goodbye, one more tiptoe as high as she can to kiss her Uncle Seokmin goodbye. As Mingyu closes the door, Seoyeon’s “Bye, Uncle Seokmin!” roams through the cracks before locking it.

He starts his way back to the kitchen but not without arms around his waist once more, risking a trip flat on the floor. He laughs at the sudden urge for physical affection and how he’s not the only one feeling it today. He crouches down to Seoyeon’s height and brings her under his arms, more of a competition of who can land the most kisses than an actual embrace.

Her fingers play with the tag of his shirt, but she doesn’t let go. “When did you come home?”

As Mingyu sets up the table, three bowls and three sets of utensils brimming the smile at his lips, the rice cooker and pot to the table, he sighs at the sight and Seoyeon leaning her cheek onto the side of his neck. “I came while you were at school.”

“Did you wait a long time?” she asks, perching her chin at the slope of his shoulder. He shakes his head, says it’s not too long, wishes to say waiting for her will never be too long.

With Mingyu’s question about her homework and if she has a lot for toda, Seoyeon’s post-classes meal ends with their conversations about the plant on the kitchen counter and what Wonwoo ate on the airplane ride here. Seoyeon shrugs, fighting off the steam dancing around the rice cooker and grains she scooped sprinkling onto the table. Blown eyes of being caught dropping them, Mingyu raising his eyebrows at her to pick them up right away, Seoyeon smiles at Wonwoo with the whites of her teeth, in lost cause of an argument and complete forgiveness from both of them.

Plucking each grain and placing them on her napkin, she says there isn’t a lot of homework for today because there is a test tomorrow. She doesn’t let the sigh of dread go missing when she supplies, “But I have to study.”

When emptied-clean pots and plates and full stomachs stop them from moving, none of them even want to think about moving from the table just yet. No one flinches when the lid breaks the silence and slides right on the pot shut, ready to be carried to the sink and washed.

He glances at Seoyeon’s tiny smirk after the savory meal and her eyes batting shut in the wake of a food coma. To his left, Mingyu taps his fingers over his stomach. The shared meal, one that touches the same at each of their palates. The sound of Seoyeon giggling and her eyes finding the light when Mingyu burps deep behind his hand and excuses himself. Three bowls, three spoons, three pairs of chopsticks. One soft voice humming a new song stolen from the radio during their ride here and the second one trying to fill the words in and butchering at every other syllable because the song has just gained radio play in the world. The third voice, Wonwoo’s own, failing mute into a snicker when he notices Mingyu watching Seoyeon as if she’s giving them the best performance any artist, dancer, or singer can’t compete against.

“I missed this” is Wonwoo’s only thought conjured up before them.

Mingyu’s grin stands in pride alone. “My cooking?”

Wonwoo nods his head down. It’s kind of the answer; it’s just part of his answer.

“I missed everything.”

Even with sudsy hands, he stops himself from reaching out and patting Seoyeon’s hair. At his right, she rinses down every bowl, spoon, chopstick, plate, and pot he passes to her. And to her own right, Mingyu lines them up on the drying rack. She vows to do her homework after the dishes and although Mingyu offers to rinse the dishes for her if she has a lot, she shakes her head, “I want to stay.”

When he finishes scrubbing down the sink and watches Seoyeon drag her backpack to her room, Mingyu asks if he wants to stash his clothes away in the drawers, proffers that he cleared up some drawers off old clothes at the dresser so he can put his belongings there. It’s better than relying on his suitcase the whole time, is his reasoning for doing so. Wonwoo smiles, thanks him, and follows him back to the bedroom.

After separating his clothes out of his bags, slipping clothes into drawers and storing his cologne bottle along the wood, he tells Mingyu he’ll head to Seoyeon’s room to see what she’s doing, if she needs help with her homework. Mingyu nods, hints of that same dream softening his features as he moves his back to the corner of the room. Wonwoo wishes the world will let his bag disappear forgotten, that it won’t be and never will need to be packed up again by the end of the two weeks.

With her door opening up for a bare slit for light, he knocks with his knuckle and listens to her “Yeah?” soon after.

He pokes the door open and slips his head inside the crack, just enough to watch her putting away her pencils into the blue case, sliding her math workbook into her backpack. It’s a side of Seoyeon he never saw before, this studious side of her, because all the times they’ve seen each other were at the breaks between school sessions. He’s only been there to help her change into her clothes before she heads for school and nothing more.

She looks to the door, beaming at his direction when she must have realized that it’s not Mingyu asking to come in.

“Dad, there’s a plant for you,” she says, pointing at the succulent on her window sill. He gasps, keeps his promise to Mingyu from hours ago, and asks what kind of plant it is, as if he has never seen it before. “Can you bring it with you to the airplane?” after twisting her tongue to say its name.

Wonwoo bites his lower lip at the last words, that all of this will come to an end and even Seoyeon understands that this isn’t for long. He salvages the rest of the question for a truthful reply, says he might not be able to since “it might die in my bag because it won’t have sunlight.”

Seoyeon frowns, shoulders deflating, and promises to take care of the succulent for him until he can take it with him to New York City.

When he settles at her bed, facing her, she leans over and away to open the bottom drawer of her desk at the other side. Apprehensive hands to show him what she digs up, she finally holds out a paper carnation and white card to him with both hands. These must have been the ones she held in one of their last video calls, not long before coming here. He holds the purple flower up to his eyes, nothing but pure delight when he picks up the careful folds and imagines Seoyeon perfecting it. He thanks her for the beautiful flower and asks if he can read her card now or if she should wait for the perfect time to do so.

Seoyeon’s smile pinches small and shy, eyes avoiding him altogether. The rarity of a shy Seoyeon grips at his heart. He wonders if it’s out of embarrassment or merely not wanting to see his reaction to her card. Nonetheless, he wants to give her the choice. “Can you read it later?” She glances at him from the corner of her eye, pulls her knees up to the chair and folds them under her chin. “Or when I’m sleeping?”

So when they both hear Mingyu call out to her to shower, Wonwoo walks back to the bedroom and closes the door behind him, tucks the card and carnation behind him on his way to the bed. Mingyu’s head zips up from his phone once the door clicks, and his focus anchors to his phone and the email he has to send to a client. He settles at Mingyu’s side and says he can wait.

Mingyu locks his phone black in a minute’s time and shifts towards him, his flat smile gaping instead for the white card and purple carnation at his lap.

“Did she give you those?” he whispers, as if Seoyeon isn’t supposed to hear them.

He nods, and his heart swells in his chest at the thought of opening it. “Do you know what she wrote?”

At confessing he doesn’t know what’s written in there, that it can be anything, because he never wanted to pry it out of her, his voice streams down his face, caresses the nerves between the knit of his eyebrows and his hesitation to read the card. “You should open it.”

But he abandons time to spin around him in circles. He notes the purple carnation she drew in the front and the petals dancing off in the back. A blind’s eye at the corner would have not read her _To Dad_ , and he traces _Dad_ a thousand times to remind himself that she wrote it.

When he makes it past the second carnation, a narrow piece of cardstock slides out and tickles the center of his palm. The bookmark that fell out guards two sides of Seoyeon. The top is hole-punched at the center into the shape of a heart and a deep purple ribbon is tied through the hole. The cardstock dots more purple petals and they all cascade down to the purple flower at the bottom. Not exactly a carnation, not a rose, either.

He flips it over and everything about it slams him into years ago. At one corner, there’s a cloud holding onto a shard of lightning. A suitcase, an envelope, a jar filled halfway with the color yellow. He smiles at each drawing, at the memories of telling her each story, and the fact that she remembers all of those stories.

He finally pushes the paper inside hiding the message.

The message prints itself at the center, Seoyeon’s handwriting much neater than the last time he read it.

_Dear Dad_

_I’m happy I can call you my dad. I hope you like the bookmark and use it forever since Daddy said you like to read a lot of books._

_Love_ _  
_ _Seoyeon_

The sound of the faucet squeaking cuts off his sixth time of reading it. He finally brings the card under Mingyu’s eyes, and he watches his eyes zip from right to left across the page, nearing the same six times as he did. When he lifts his eyes from the card, there’s a smile reflecting one he’s seen on his own father so many times.

“Are you okay with what she wrote?”

“She likes calling me dad” barely makes it out of his lips with all the sound and syllables of his voice.

“Do you?”

Wonwoo swallows hard, and his thoughts for an answer dive deep into the first time he pondered about Seoyeon possibly viewing him as someone more than her uncle, more than the uncles who picked her up from school or dropped her off to her appointments when Mingyu couldn’t. More than the uncles who were with her much longer than Wonwoo has. More than the uncles she can’t think of missing in her entire life, while Wonwoo has only been there for half of it. His doubts of being able to fill in shoes similar to Mingyu’s, but not quite. To be there for all of Seoyeon’s life, but not quite.

He runs his finger over the words again, and he can’t think of wanting it any other way. “I do.”

Upon the bathroom door opening and Seoyeon humming that song from their first meal together, he tells Mingyu he’s going to talk to her. He leaves the card and carnation at the nightstand, fulfilling half her wish when it comes to her shyness of reading the card with her around.

He knocks on the door again and at “Yeah?” and sharp snaps of the plastic comb shredding into her hair, he opens the door wider and steps inside. The image of her avoiding her eyes about reading the card shoves the words back down his throat. So rather than outright saying he read the card, he kneels in front of her and opens his arms, lets her knock him flat across the floor when she runs up to him and wraps her arms around his neck.

“Thank you for the bookmark and the flower, Seoyeon,” he whispers, dropping a kiss to her forehead, paving a hand down her back and sopping hair. “And I’m happy that you can call me your dad, too.”

Despite the fresh shower dripping cold drops onto Mingyu’s shirt he’s wearing, he wants to hide under the blanket that is Seoyeon. But after landing his hand on the puddle pooling beside him, he asks if she wants him to comb her hair. Wonwoo settles at her bed and she slides between his legs, crosses her own legs as she straightens up. He combs through the jungle of strands and towels it as dry as he can.

The first hit of a dream too good to be real for the three of them hits them hard. Dinner simmers at their stomachs and the bed meets the three of them together for the first time in a long time. He watches the tension up Mingyu’s throat under the pressure of Seoyeon’s question, the fists curling at his sides as Seoyeon frees his hand.

Her eyes skate around him and the rim of his glasses when he lies on his side to face her. She tucks her hands under her head, drops her eyes to her feet. Her voice loses itself and it’s foreign in his ears when she asks the somber “Dad, when do you have to go back?”

Because even Seoyeon knows this won’t be for a long time. The three sleeping in the bed together and combing her hair after a shower. Sharing a meal without a computer or a phone barricading between them from reaching over and tucking the hair behind her ear. Simply talking without the barrier of time warning them that it’s time to sleep just as the other person is rising up for a new day.

It’s a punch of reality for all of them, and he’s not sure how to block it.

“In two weeks, Seoyeon” free falls dreary into her ears, “then I have to go back.”

The words drop and the numbers add up, maybe fewer than what Seoyeon was hoping for. He steels his heart for the sniff at her nose and facing the one Mingyu might elicit, but it doesn’t come. She leans into him and rubs her forehead against his chest until he lies back on his back and waits as she settles the side of her face on his chest. Her fingers itch onto his shirt, and he takes in each second slowly.

“I’m sorry it’s so short.”

The lack of a response burns at him. He hates that Seoyeon knows that seeing each other will end some time, that she must have gotten so used to these broken hopes of forever. She slips her arm over his chest, feels her drape her leg over his, and he begins to pat her back asleep.

The hands of the clock mock them into slowing time down. Lights off, singing every ballad he can think of at the top of his head so Seoyeon can fall asleep, they trade hours for the moment Mingyu tells him she fell asleep.

And when he does, Mingyu maps one side of his face with the lines of his palms. He realizes, then, that he did it to thumb the tear under his eye.

\----

“It’s okay, Seoyeon” drifts into the edges of Wonwoo’s dreams and the side of the bed, fraying fragments of Mingyu in the dark one second and a mere shadow between the curtains in the next, back and forth, real and not real. Morning unfriendly at his throat, Mingyu’s cough is rough in the air. “Let him sleep.”

“Aw, okay,” Seoyeon surrenders with pieces of her voice gone in the same morning. The mattress shuffles more than the bed sheets, mattress squeaks and hollow rattles on the nightstand, as company beside him vanishes.

The space at the other side of the bed imprints cold and when he reaches out, his fingers latch onto bare blankets and fading warmth of Seoyeon’s spot. As he stretches his arms above his head and lands them on the top of the headboard, frees the groan through, the lost company returns to the other side, to the nightstand’s side. Something digs into his chest and upon cracking an eye open, Seoyeon digs the side of her face over his heart.

Digits playing into their first hours with the sun, she tickles his palm with a fingertip of hers, tracing the lines there. His chuckle seeps faint between the walls, between her fingers poking into the center of his palm, and through her quiet “Are you coming to school with me?”

He closes his eyes this once as she tilts her head down and away from his face. His head falls deeper into the pillow and it might be their first morning waking up together for this trip or the expecting tone of her voice, that she _wants_ him to come with her and send her off to school for the day. It might be her attempts in slotting their fingers together. It might be his giving into her gesture as she relaxes her palm against his. It might be his “I’d love to” that earns the rub of her cheek so warm against his chest, warmer than the sunlight trickling through the crevices of the window. It might be her crawling back into the bed, scrambling over his legs and the blankets, but if every day robbed a fraction of all his yearning’s granted in this morning, he wouldn’t mind if every day is the same as today.

The last time he helped Seoyeon prepare for school, he held her pants up in the right direction so that she slipped her left leg into the left hole and her right leg in the right hole, to make sure her pants wouldn’t end up on backwards and limbs tangled. Gentle fingers through her hair as he combed them. Novice braids of her hair that she still thanked him for, nothing close to the clean braids Mingyu always did for her. With not much help he can offer to ease her morning and the school day, he reckons their mornings won’t need to be that way anymore.

“She grows up too fast,” Wonwoo barely ghosts the words out once Mingyu sits at the dining table with him. Side dishes still full and chopsticks flat on the table, his appetite runs away with all the school days he could have woken up an odd hour for, just so that surprise isn’t what hits him when he notices Seoyeon’s hair is brushing close to her lower back or that she doesn’t need to tiptoe anymore to reach the sink.

He kicks those thoughts away, though, as Mingyu scoops rice for three with a yawn knocking his lips crooked and eyes weary and agrees, “She really does.”

Today, after she finishes eating breakfast, his eyes trail to her washing her dishes at the sink and walking to the bathroom, entering her bedroom with damp cheeks and her hairline glued to her forehead. In minutes after, his eyes pick back up to her opening her bedroom door and coming back with her hair combed perfectly and her jacket draped over her arm, navy blue backpack in her other hand. She drops it off where the floor of the living room diverges to the front door’s hall, close to the shoe rack.

On the other side of that same memory, Wonwoo thinks he hasn’t changed much. He barely shakes the sleep out of his system, time difference and his body clock aside, and he only slips on the jacket Mingyu offered and scratches around his eyes, running his hand through his hair. Mingyu isn’t any different, either, and if anything, Wonwoo reminds himself to tug half his shirt from his shorts before any of them step past the door.

Dropping Seoyeon off to school lives off stark compared to the last time he did. He can’t lift her up in his arms anymore, no matter how much he wants to try and no matter how much Mingyu chides him because Seoyeon is too old and too tall for that now. There isn’t the stranger passing by and telling him about their beautiful daughter, something that has his breath hitching when Mingyu curbs up to the school when he remembers that day. And this time, it’s sunshine basking against his skin, instead of the hard pricks of winter to come.

When she leans to the front of the car, between the driver’s and passenger’s seats, he doubts the kiss on his cheek before the one on Mingyu’s. He wonders if his heart can beat this quick and light so early into the day before he bids Seoyeon a nice day at school.

Their morning back in the apartment restarts with washing the dishes at the sink. Morning tunes slip in from Mingyu’s phone, something he learns now that he’s with them on a more routine day of the year. The serene humming breaks when Mingyu cracks his voice, throwing his head back as if to brag about all his wrong notes at all the wrong places. Wonwoo pinches his lips from laughing but when it fails, Mingyu bumps his hip against his, bumps his lips against his.

He doesn’t need to ask Mingyu to stop and save his voice. As they stack the dishes on the drying rack, the first ring of Mingyu’s phone stops him from doing so. They let it continue, let it kill the song whole, but when the ringtone turns close to as long as one of their songs, he watches Mingyu grumble about not coming in today, like he asked months ago.

“If you need to go,” Wonwoo starts, brushing the sleepy fringe from Mingyu’s eyes and the scowl there, above the jut of his lower lips, apprehension of answering at the part of his lips, “I can wait.”

It’s probably important for Mingyu’s work if they’re asking him to come and if anything, it’ll help the two of them get accustomed to not seeing each other like vacation, as if stealing time from the sun and moon are more common than days in and out of their offices or in front of Seoyeon’s school. It will ease them to the life they will have someday. He can clean around the apartment, edit some vows he left on hold, or churn his memories for Seoyeon’s stories. He can call his parents, too, now that the time is right on both ends of the call.

The goodbye out the door costs a peck, perhaps three, to finally bid Mingyu goodbye. Besides the white sweater tucked loosely into his black slacks, the ring in his left hand, and silver watch in his right, his eyes linger on the messenger he bought for him long ago. Remnants of his own cologne, _Wonwoo’s_ cologne at Mingyu’s neck because of careless grabs at the dresser, stay at the door, moments after they finally closed it.

He decides not to explore anywhere for the day, no matter how many times Mingyu told him he should because Mingyu is sure he remembers the little parts of Seoul despite the city’s big changes. He reminds him of writing Seoyeon’s stories, to solidify them in something longer and more tangible than their words. So he pulls up his laptop at Mingyu’s desk, in front of the computer that got to know the three of them too well after all these years.

To the left of the desk, the table camouflages as a third shelf. Mingyu’s sketchbooks and older architecture textbooks, reference books pile at the bottom shelf. Seoyeon’s workbooks from years past lined up in the second. The fourth, hovering over the surface of the table, remains bare of anything on top of it.

Instead, taped from the edges, a line of pictures hang there. The closest one to his seat is Seoyeon sitting on the kitchen counter behind him, yellow dress fanned out reaching past her knees. Tips of her toes close to grazing the chair there, he guesses it might be one of those pictures of Seoyeon before he met her, before he knew her like this. Lips cracked open in a smile brighter than the sun, he can hear the giggle from the print.

To the right of that picture, white captures Mingyu and Seoyeon. White curtains reaching from the white ceiling and waterfalling down to the white tile floors. A white bookshelf behind them, half-filled with white books besides a white fluffy rug. A white rocking chair besides an even smaller rocking chair. And in the middle of the white, Seoyeon’s skin glows against her white dress that hovers just below her knees and above her bare feet, one foot on the tile and her other slightly stepping up, almost as if to step closer to Mingyu.

And in front of her, Mingyu dons faded blue jeans and his white button-up is rolled to his elbows, a couple buttons popped open and showcasing where Seoyeon inherited that glowing skin of hers. They’re holding hands, careful about where they step, and he can only guess what happened in the frames after this one.

The third and last picture captures the three of them at the floor of his living room, sitting around the coffee table. The glow of New Year’s Eve and a midnight dinner, fireworks not from the television screen off the frame but in the words this picture shoots off from the memory, all his mind traces out is Mingyu laughing his heart out. He remembers that exact moment, when Seoyeon yelled out “Happy New Year, Auntie Sam!” that promised them a better year to come.

He turns his attention back to the reason for sitting down at the table. He opens up the document he started for Seoyeon’s stories, nearly blank if he doesn’t squint hard enough. A skeleton of each story he brewed up for her marks up into headings-- _Magic power_ , _Suitcase_ , _Messenger boy_ , _Thunder and lightning_. His brain jogs around for something deeper than those words but stumbles upon the writer’s block. His fingers fly over the keys and the word count barely strays far from what he started out in the beginning. So he closes it all out, abandons the document there with a note to ask Seoyeon what she remembers. Perhaps she remembers the little details more than he does.

In the late afternoon, his ears perk up at beeps from the front door, and he presses the save button five times before he heads for the door. At the monitor besides the door, he notices the white sweater from hours ago and a fatherly smile on Mingyu facing away. The crown of Seoyeon’s head appears at the bottom corner, her height barely scraping by just for the camera to record the hair clips at her crown.

“Did Dad stay home?” he hears her ask, excited despite the whisper.

He opens the door faster than Mingyu can answer her, and he thinks he’ll hug Seoyeon first before having to dodge Mingyu’s peck, still unsure if Seoyeon is okay seeing him kiss her father, if the wound from the airport still reaps fresh. Mingyu decides otherwise, though, with a press of hello on his cheek, a second on his lips.

He blinks over the rustle of plastic, steadies himself in what just happened, and he reaches out for the bag Seoyeon holds in her two hands. On their way inside, he feels her slip her hand against his. He stops by the shoe rack, waits for her to untie her shoes, leaning over to her side so she can pull her shoes off without letting his hand go. All in the while, Mingyu robs the plastic bag as he pats a hand at his waist and slips behind him to drop his messenger bag under the desk.

“What’s in there?” he asks, soft enough that the words are known only to the two of them.

She shakes her head, though, and scrunches her lips together. “I promised Daddy I won’t tell you.”

As he frees her hand, watches her head to her room with her backpack, Mingyu sets the bag on the table and bounds for the kitchen cabinets and the small plates. Three plates around the white box at the table, he asks what’s in the bag.

“I’ll wait for Seoyeon,” Mingyu says.

They sit at the table and wait for Seoyeon. Wonwoo learns that Mingyu’s boss called him in to go over transferring--some documents with a million words a page, immunizations he and Seoyeon might have to go through, the pressure of the test, possibilities of a headstart in learning English. When Seoyeon returns in her pajamas, Mingyu assures him that they will get through it.

She sticks close to Wonwoo’s side, taking the chair right beside him. Mingyu nods at the cardboard box, eyes sparking above the grin. “You should open it, Seoyeon.”

Seoyeon gasps, mirrors the same sparks at her eyes. “Really?” Mingyu unknots the bag, a queue for her to peel off tape strips and open the box up.

Powdered sugar snows at perimeters of cardboard and his memories of New York. He can’t help his question of, “Where did you find these?”

Mingyu reaches out and drops a lobster tail on Seoyeon’s plate before Wonwoo’s, before his own. “I had to ask a few people at work.”

He learns that a chunk of the clock leading up to sleep meeting Seoyeon halfway consists of “Would you rather” questions and tired giggles strung under fluttering eyelashes, lullabies to send her to sleep in the form of patting her back and pulling her close. Wonwoo thinks his questions lack the creativity that Mingyu and Seoyeon send left and right over the bed.

This round, when they let Seoyeon come up with the question, the three of them try to extinguish the divide across the mattress when she asks if they would rather eat poop-flavored cheesecake or cheesecake-flavored poop. But the line digs deeper than kicking blankets and sloping ends of pillows, tug of war of those same blankets sliding on their knees, legs, and stomachs. Peace treads foreign along that divide.

Wonwoo can’t conceal his smile, celebrating just to mock Mingyu, when Seoyeon rolls over to his side of the bed, closing up the space between the curve of her back and his chest. Lying on his side, he hugs the front of her shoulders from behind as she declares that she would rather eat cheesecake that tastes like poop.

Mingyu turns to lie on his side, the bed bordered by their bodies and somewhat trapping Seoyeon between them. He props his head up with the bend of his arm and pokes at her stomach, asks why she would rather eat something that tastes like poop. “Poopy breath,” Mingyu snickers.

“Because,” she begins, and they let the gears work in her mind for an explanation. One quick glance at each other, over the bump of her hair from sliding over, he thinks Mingyu’s idea of each picking a side and letting Seoyeon decide on her own is the best thing to come out of this game. She huffs, holds onto his arm at her collarbone. “Because, _Daddy,_ if you eat the poop that tastes like cheesecake, you’re still eating poop.”

Mingyu frowns lonesome at the other side of the bed, but with Wonwoo’s turn, his question sends Seoyeon back to the middle but his hand still holding hers under the sheets, hidden from Mingyu’s eyesight.

“Would you rather have a time machine or a machine that stops time?” Wonwoo digs from the bottom depths of his memories, something he could forget the next day if it wasn’t for this game.

The single question stills the night better than a stop in the world’s commotion. Lying there, her hand freezing up against his, they watch the ceiling for an answer, trace the bumps for one. All he finds is a slice of clear tape and when he points it out, Mingyu smiles in recognition, asks Seoyeon if she remembers the multiplication table he stuck to the ceiling.

They both turn their heads to Seoyeon, to her playing with the ends of her hair with a quiet pout in a thought’s hesitance. Her own question isn’t another round cutting this one off, to pretend this question was never asked because no one has an answer yet. “If I get a time machine that stops time, does that mean I can be with you forever?” sends the bed into a fight of who gets to kiss her more.

“You had her for the poopy cheesecake round,” Mingyu points out, “so it’s only fair that I can hug her now.”

“Your poopy decision was the reason why I could hug her,” Wonwoo attempts to retaliate, but the seriousness and the vice at his words fail into the shared laughter of the three, two snug between the space of Mingyu squeezing Seoyeon into an embrace that squeezes more of her cheek against his.

This time, though, Wonwoo doesn’t fight back, not when her giggles muffle under his chin and her arms reach out to hold as much of Mingyu in her arm as she can. He stays where he is because it’s the only way he can truly indulge himself at the sight of Seoyeon and Mingyu in front of him before it isn’t there anymore.

Mingyu smiles with his eyes closed in a trance as she relaxes under his arms and on his chest. Kisses flitting to her hair and forehead when he brushes them to the side, Seoyeon tries to fit herself under his arms even more, and Wonwoo thinks the only way to do so is if he breaches across that debate's divide in the mattress and slips his arms over Seoyeon and Mingyu.

The stars fight off the lonesome for the three of them as Seoyeon’s dreams capture her before the two of them tonight. He doesn’t want to keep the velvet box in his possession any longer, wishes to quit leaving Mingyu’s finger bare when he’s been donning a ring on his fourth for _months_ now. They subside the day at the dining table, expire the worries for the next before hours are up. With Mingyu’s focus on his sketching Saturn for Seoyeon at the other side of the table, Wonwoo has been staring at the same email for minutes and minutes. Seoyeon skipped along the fine line between awake and asleep when he opened it up, and he now questions that maybe it really has been an hour or two since.

His whisper of “I have your ring” passes over the quiet studies of the table. His eyes note Mingyu’s hand tensing at the words, pencil straightening up and lifting it a slight over the page. Mingyu closes the book up in one turn of his hand.

Mingyu craning his head up stretches the seconds, and his eyes hold the stars all around Saturn when they meet halfway. There’s a gentle smile peeking his canines through, an even more gentle “You can do it whenever you’re comfortable, Wonwoo.”

He nods his head, skims his eyes over the edge of Mingyu’s laptop he’s been borrowing. But he refuses to let Mingyu tick by the minutes with a bare hand, and in a way, it might be selfish of him to keep the ring in his bag for so long.

If he does it now, it won’t live off that extravagance of New York City’s skyline at night that Mingyu probably planned without planning, no snowflakes clinging onto their eyelashes nor Seoyeon hopping around them for the crunches of ice build-up under her boots. It won’t have the wind chasing Seoyeon’s giggles off the edge and at the borders of the apartment building’s rooftop, her arms snug around his waist or clutching onto Mingyu’s arm. It’s nowhere near fancy or picturesque that most people associate proposals with, but he thinks it doesn’t have to be and it never has to.

A glimpse of the smile before he heads back into the bedroom, he turns the corner in the hallway and opens the door without a squeak, waits for the light to bathe the walls and its corner soundless. With the velvet box in his hand, he steals a heavy breath, opens it to ensure the glint of the silver band there and some of the words sticking to his memory.

But when he closes the box up, the words in his mind follow along. He kneels at his bag, willing his mind back to penning down that first draft, retouching down to the last word, before rewriting it once and twice more after that. He slips his recollections back to the plane ride and the attendant asking him if he would like anything to drink, his curt decline for one to focus on the notebook in his hand. His fingertips hover over the notebook, but everything slips through the crevices of his memory.

Back at the dining table, ivory pages and velvet in his hands, the lights above them latch onto the tears already sliding down Mingyu’s cheeks without passing a single syllable.

“You really did,” Mingyu whispers through the flickers of light along the tears.

The kick of his pulse shakes his breath, and he forces as much of a smile as he can if it means stopping the tear at his own eye from joining Mingyu’s.

When he sits down next to Mingyu, the box clacks like thunder on the table in favor of reaching over and thumbing under Mingyu’s eye before his own. But once the corners of his lips flatten, tremble at the sight of Mingyu parting his lips and no sound escaping, comforting exhales fever at his wrist. When the tear does drop, neither of them flinch a muscle, no scattering eyes down to where it drops and picking it back up. Another at Mingyu’s lap, a third staining Wonwoo’s shorts.

He clears his throat, scares away the quiet, and admits he’s sure he’ll forget something, despite having it all written on his notebook. And in the end, Mingyu declines his “You can read it instead” with a still shake of his head under his palm.

Mingyu’s eyes cascade down to the notebook and his cheeks bud for the weary chuckle out his lips. He lifts a hand up to Wonwoo’s on his cheek, their fingertips touching the threat of another tear. “It’s the one I gave you when I went to New York by myself.”

Wonwoo nods, and he drops his hand to open the box up in his palm, at his lap. Will he do it right? The number of weddings he’s attended closes in on a hundred and the number of rings he watched being worn for the first time slips to twice as many.

He asks Mingyu if he wants the ring first or his words, and not a beat passes between them when “Your words, of course” comes.

He scratches the back of his head, to placate the nerves, to do something that isn’t satiating the need to run away from the table. He’s had clients practice their vows with him, had clients _ask him_ to come early to ensure each word written comes out right when said aloud, but why is he so nervous? Thousands of words with the purpose of promise said, written, heard, and felt in all his years of doing this, but why does his breath shake when he adds onto those thousands of words with ones of his own?

“I don’t know how to start” is anxiety’s way of dusting the situation off. He presses a palm to the nervous beats of his heart, opens his notebook up, and wills the first word off the page before anything else can stop him.

“ _Everything you do feels like a love note. It can be folded into the smallest creases so it’s only for me to see or printed into the front pages of our lives in big, bold letters._

“ _There’s a love note when you call me, despite the borders and hours too behind to care and everything else in between, and I’ll read every word in it. There’s a love note in the moments where I can listen to those words from you because we beat the borders and hours and everything else in between. So many love notes where I have to hold onto the syllables because they might be the last ones we say to each other before we have to part again. There’s a love note strung in the comfort quiet of your smile printed into my neck and holding me like it’s the first time all over again. There’s a love note in everything you do because everything feels like the first time, even when we get scared that it might be our last for a while._

“ _There’s also a love note when you don’t mean to leave one. There’s a love note I started keeping with me ever since this all started, that reminds me that it’s not a burden to reach out to people. Another love note that tells me it’s okay not to know. There’s one you wrote for me, tucked into the pocket of my thoughts, that reminds me to never put a limit on my happiness._

“ _There are a million and more of your love notes I keep with me, and I will make sure that somehow, I will reply to each one of them with ones of my own. They may not be as perfect as all the ones you write into my life because I’m still learning. I don’t know if I can offer as many of them as you offer to me, but, Mingyu, I promise that I will try to write back each love note of yours with ones of my own from now on until the rest of our lives. And maybe a little more than that. Because happiness is the simplest, yet hardest thing to ask for, but I think you and Seoyeon brought me closer to it._

“ _And in that time, I hope we can teach Seoyeon all the love notes she’s written for both of us, the ones she doesn’t know she picked up the pencil for, and the ones she will continue to write for the rest of the world._ ”

His lungs singe at the silence, and everything inside of him fret for the sting of tears at his eyes revisited. The white pages of the notebook shred into uncertainty at the bounds and with Mingyu’s hand in his, he realizes, just then, that the tremble of a palm isn’t from his hand.

When he chances his eyes up, Mingyu’s other hand heels at his eye, both pressing hard against his eyes the split-second he slips his hand away just as he frees out a suppressed cry. And the whimper at his lips, into the undisturbed quiet, is all Mingyu’s efforts to keep his volume low, refusing to let Seoyeon hear the sound.

“What’s wrong, Mingyu?” he asks into the gentle of the night, and he wishes this time that the moon holds their hand for the rest and after this.

Are his words wrong? Did he say something that hurt him?

He lifts his hand from the tabletop, from the notebook and velvet, and it curves against Mingyu’s bare knee. His shorts ride up a slight and Wonwoo traces the tension at his joint there, all stillness salvaged there and broken at Mingyu’s hands and lips, words and cries.

But Mingyu shakes his head, a tiny sound from the pit of his throat that retreats back before his voice is a higher pitch from the tightness of his throat, “Nothing, nothing is wrong. It’s just you-you mentioned Seoyeon. You mentioned her-” a sniff, one careless wipe over his eyes with the back of his hand that does nothing to erase the tears, and he greets Wonwoo with pink at his cheeks and all around his skin. “Wonwoo, I don’t know if you know how much that means to me.”

Mingyu bites into his lower lip, but it refuses to give into the calm they want when he tilts his head low, as if trying to hide it from him. But Wonwoo brings his hands up again, carries the world in his two hands, and shocks at every tremble into his palms. He runs his thumbs under Mingyu’s eyes until he cracks, leans over the invisible line between their dining chairs, and arms slip around his shoulders. Mingyu barely cling onto his shirt, fingertips nearly slipping when he grabs for the hem at the back of his neck, but the sob is concrete from fading out at his neck.

Tonight, it’s not the moon holding their hands this time. The clock is patient with them, hands not straying too far from their reach and not letting the hands of seconds, minutes, and hours go by in an instant. And they let themselves indulge with time. With Mingyu’s hands scratching up for purchase at his back, he feels Mingyu lax and tense every once in a while against him. And when the sound breaks out loud, of a cry too harsh for the quiet to keep it under, he lets out a sound of his own, hides his lips against Mingyu’s neck, and hopes to keep it that way.

The sound dissipates among the night chatter of dimming skylines and ticking clocks, kaleidoscope of electricity at their fingertips under the lights. Foreheads sinking together like magnets and despite sitting centimeters into slouching from him, his eyes lower down to Mingyu’s.

He tilts his head down, Mingyu’s palms across his cheeks and lips tentative this time.

Sunrise waits with them through the night, stealing a star away from indigo horizons with every kiss that passes between them, fleeting and sometimes miscalculated. A thousand stars must have passed when he cradles Mingyu’s hand in his and slips the ring through. From one star and the next, the question of reality plays with him, coaxes him into an alternate universe somewhere, because the words of “This is too good to be real” still intrudes his thoughts.

Doubt hovers besides them, invisible and unwelcoming, but still there despite. Mingyu sits closer to doubt than Wonwoo when his smile breaks, afraid of his “Do we really make you happy, Wonwoo?”

It’s the single question that refuses to stop haunting them, but he’s not sure what it is about it this particular time. There’s a pang in his heart, crushing the air in his lungs but the tears out his eyes. His temples burn when the sob escapes from his lips, but he’s nodding his head, scratching the tears out, but he’s nodding nonetheless.

He knows where Mingyu is coming from and why this question still comes up, but it pains him knowing that Mingyu still feels the need to ask him that question when he and Seoyeon really do. Because rising up nearly every morning after his first trip back home became a less daunting task for him and making choices that will help him without the awful feeling of being self-centered. There’s Seoyeon that brings out an innocence in his days that chase away those nightmares of reality, and Seoyeon being the very reason to get up in the morning that isn't just dragging himself into work.

It’s a question that haunts them, perhaps longer than they would like to admit, but it’s something that will get better with time.

Lost in his thoughts, the patches of warmth from Mingyu’s palms returning across his face once more doesn’t register to him right away. He stops it all at once, the nodding and wiping off the tears, to hold onto one of Mingyu’s wrists. He drags his thumb over his wrist, soothing himself more than Mingyu at this point.

“Are you sleepy?” cracks between the whisper, and not a pinch of his voice comes out in the question. Wonwoo creaks out one last nod for the night. “Our eyes will be gross in the morning” sparks the smallest of smiles.

Wonwoo wordlessly asks for his hand and when their rings slide past each other with the squeeze of his palm, he smiles, lets the tear fall by itself this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the "would you rather" questions were actually tablo and haru's. the cheesecake one was from [his podcast](https://youtu.be/iyo3a6v958Y?t=83), while the time machine one was from [an old blonote](https://tablonotes.tumblr.com/post/98193434241/a-time-machine-vs-a-machine-that-stops-time-what). i love them :')
> 
> i also hope the chapter summary makes sense sdlkfjd it makes sense to me lmao
> 
> i'm uh gone from twt at the moment so if you're reading this when i posted it, you can see i disappeared...like a magic trick!! but just in case, the links are still [tumblr](http://seokmins-thighs.tumblr.com), [twitter](https://twitter.com/_miniinfinity), or [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/miniinfinity)


	3. 2034

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Honestly,” Soonyoung breaks the light of air under the tree with a sigh, eyes darting between him and Mingyu, “Seoyeon’s birthday feels different this time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> before anything, i wanna put out that there are carrds dedicated to information and ways you can help for [black lives matter](https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/) and the [anti-terrorism bill in the philippines](https://junkterrorbill.carrd.co/)\--whether it's a dollar, a call, a text, an email, or a signature.
> 
> back to my bs, which includes me, writing this chapter: gosh there are so many kids in this i can't even keep track of them
> 
> no **warnings** this time around it's a streak for me unless it sounds like there should be a warning, let me know!!
> 
> i also added "tomorrow after tomorrow" by wisue in the [playlist for seoyeon](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3SXBxRKbeCydEq1YXIrB1E?si=YozKxspjTaiXj8XBPFmPEQ) a while back uwu

_Ding._

_Brr._

_Ding._

_Brr._

_Ding._

_Brr._

Wonwoo pinches the corners of his eyes at the sound of the two phones going off, Mingyu’s phone transforming into an alarm clock in his hand and his own phone vibrating on the nightstand behind him. He stops himself from moving too much with Seoyeon’s embrace around his chest sewn with the sound of her snores. When he opens his eyes, Mingyu lies on his back at the other side of the bed, at the other side of Seoyeon between them, firing away messages he assumes overwhelm the group chat. Curtains cut off much of the sunlight coming in, phone shrouding a halo Mingyu, and something in him wants to reach out to convince himself that it’s not the sickness of the distance that has him fooling into visions of everything right now. Mingyu bellows out a long exhale, finally closes out his phone, and flips over to lie on his side.

When Mingyu props his hand against the side of his head, facing him and Seoyeon’s side of the bed, he’s not sure who shared the first smile of the day. Between the haze without his glasses, dim of the bedroom from bare separations of curtains and sunlight wanting to trespass in, he’s sure it was him. He reaches over, past Seoyeon glued up to him, past her other hand hooked inside the pocket of Mingyu’s thin sweatshirt he stole in the middle of the night. He cards his digits through Mingyu’s hair, squints enough to outline the sight of Mingyu closing his eyes and tilting his head up into his palm.

Warm to the touch as always, heat tattoos onto his fingertips past dropping his hand to pat Seoyeon’s back.

They tread for a wordless morning. Wonwoo steals uncertain glances at Mingyu with his glasses still gone behind him. He breathes in Seoul, breathes in Seoyeon’s rumbling across his chest. He breathes in the sound of Mingyu and Seoyeon right in front of him.

“You should greet her first,” Mingyu manages out through a yawn.

His lips ghost out an almost soundless “Really?”

He thinks he still needs a moment to catch up to the reality that there’s no need to call them at an odd hour to wish Seoyeon a happy birthday this time. No odd hours for them this time, no misaligned clocks they have to ask about because they still forget about time differences. Today, this morning, is just the same early hours on the same side of the world. This morning is May 27 seized at the same time, just opposite edges of the bed.

“I think she’ll be more excited to hear it from you first.”

The deep breath from neither of them cuts the word out of their conversation. The weight disappears from his side when Seoyeon lifts her arm up to stretch under the blanket, groaning at her muscles waking up. Her eyes still screwed shut, her arm falls back around his chest, her forehead sinking right over his heart. A palm returning between her shoulder blades, pitters of his fingertips along her spine, he then brushes her long hair from her face. And in return, he feels Seoyeon dig her cheek more into his chest.

Wonwoo thinks she looks too serene beside him to place barely a thought in disturbing her.

When she peeks up, he whispers the smallest “Happy birthday, Seoyeon” his voice can muster this early.

Her smile forms over his heart when she giggles, the sound still growing used to the day that pieces of her voice slip inaudible in this proximity, this shared space. She sinks her entire face on his heart and mumbles a squeaky “Thank you, Dad” that he can’t help himself from kissing the top of her head. Mingyu’s hand comes in front of him, patting her back, and wishing her the same greeting, the same drumming fingertips between her shoulder blades. They’re too close to her neck that she curls away from Mingyu and hugs him tighter, an “It tickles” lost in the laughter of her own voice, of both his and Mingyu’s voices, too.

Seoyeon rolls over to the opposite edge of the bed and despite the wave of summer this time of the year, he misses her warmth already. He watches Mingyu wrap his arms around her shoulders, lug her on top of him to hug her and ensure each one of his kisses--on her cheek, her nose, her forehead, her other cheek, her chin, the top of her hair, along her hairline--do land on her. Under Mingyu’s “Did I miss a spot?” and his attack of kisses, Seoyeon surrenders into a fit of giggles, relaxing under his arms.

Her breathless whine of “Your face itches, Daddy” is the only thing that stops Mingyu from kissing her any more, and he finally lets the two of them catch their breaths.

Just an arm’s reach away, Wonwoo keeps himself quiet. He’s known Seoyeon for three-something years and known her this way for a little less than that, but this is the first birthday of hers he gets to celebrate with them and _beside_ them. He pulls the blanket past his shoulders, keeps himself quiet even more when it’s just Mingyu and Seoyeon lying at the other side, Seoyeon wrapping as much of Mingyu in her shorter arms as she can and her father squishing her cheek with his.

When Mingyu’s arms give way, he pokes a finger at her side, sending her flinching off with a shriek and surrender closer to Wonwoo. “We have to record your height today,” Mingyu whispers the excitement too loud to just be heard outside of her own ears.

The handful of words sends Seoyeon inching off to the end of the bed. Once her feet flatten on the floor, she hurries out with the tangled knots of her hair bouncing behind her. With the sound of Seoyeon rummaging through in her bedroom, Mingyu roams over to his side of the bed, and his question is gentle into their morning, into his ears, “Do you want to sleep some more?”

It’s a tempting question. Any other time with any other person, he would say yes and tell them not to wait for him. But he shakes his head, forehead yearning closer until it fans out against Mingyu’s halfway across the pillows. A fleeting peck at his lips, barely long enough to wake him up more, Mingyu finds his hand under the sheets and tugs him up and off the bed.

In Seoyeon’s room, she’s already sitting in front of the bookshelf with a ruler and permanent marker on her lap. It’s the same ruler he remembers from his first visit here, and his _Miss Kim!_ sends his smile unrelenting at all his wrong answers.

Before Seoyeon gets the chance to stand up, his eyes linger on the markings etching up the side of the bookshelf.

His heart plummets to the pit of his guts when his eyes skate up the shelf--to the unfamiliar penmanship for _2027_ , Mingyu’s ink for _2028_ , the invisible punch to his lungs that _2027_ must have been written by Jihye, Seoyeon’s novice scrawls of _2029_ , and up until the awaiting 2034 yet unwritten. The bookshelf harbors all the years he could have simply greeted her a happy birthday, greeted Mingyu another healthy year for his daughter.

He forces the guilt down his throat as Seoyeon flattens her spine against the bookshelf. Mingyu kneels before her and sets his hands on her shoulders, ruler and marker digging into his palms and into Seoyeon’s upper arms, to make sure they’re not lying about her height in the future and “What if next year, we think you got shorter?”

Mingyu bites the marker cap off, raises the ruler, flattens her hair, but stops from dotting the shelf midway. He turns up to him and his “Do you want to do it, Wonwoo?” touches the heaviness in his heart and the question nearly out his ears. He blinks, falters the smile from his apprehensions seconds ago, at the thought of recording her height for her this year, for the first time.

He kneels next to Mingyu. With Seoyeon pouting before him, he pinches his lips tight when Seoyeon times it just right. She lifts herself taller on her toes just as Mingyu turns to him and hands the ruler and marker to him.

She smiles the morning grays away again when Mingyu taps a finger on her foot with a smirk. When the soles of her feet level off and her heels line up against the bottom of the bookshelf, he brings the ruler to the top of her head, marks off in one quick line like the others, before telling her she can move.

A couple steps to the side, the top line blends into the shades of the wood, black bleeding to light brown into the back of his mind, when his eyes scrape down lower, lower, past _2033_ secured with Seoyeon’s handwriting, descends deeper than _2032_ with a squiggly line at the end and the idea of Seoyeon accidentally knocking the marker off Mingyu’s hand teasing into his daydreams. The world lets him breathe to the bottom, to the first marking, to the first line signifying Seoyeon turning one. He caps the marker back on and runs a finger at the very first mark on the shelf, _2026_ rising up against his thumb like a reminder of everything he missed out on. Swimming in his own thoughts, he doesn’t notice Mingyu stealing the marker from his hand to write the year off for him.

_2034_. It’s an addition to the bookshelf, but it’s also another year of watching Seoyeon grow.

Seoyeon kneels down at his side, brings her eyes closer to the bookshelf, and points at the same line coaxing him into regrets. “Look how tiny I was,” she gasps.

Wonwoo’s smile is distant, but he wants to reach across, anyway. “Look at how much you’ve grown, Seoyeon.”

Sliding the ruler up and down the bookshelf with Seoyeon, counting all the centimeters she grew each year, curtails at the bolt of her head up from his lap about a homework assignment she just remembered about. Leaving her to focus on the assignment, the kitchen becomes their temporary solitude. Brushing off the thoughts from earlier, they don’t wander that far when hands perch at his waist, slip up his arms, and Mingyu runs faint thumb-tracks to his neck, under his jaw. He looks up to Mingyu.

“Wonwoo, do you want to talk about this?” is stern but doesn’t prick any harm or any blame, no shame in feeling this way.

He drifts his sight from him. “Not now,” he whispers. _Not on her birthday_ , luring its way further from his mind and into the open.

“We can talk about it later,” Mingyu assures him.

With the words wanting to wring around his heart, he nods under his palms.

The shower after breakfast kicks them quiet behind the bathroom door. Even with Seoyeon awake and eyes boring into her homework, he thinks he can finally breathe when Mingyu tells him that he’s still open listening to whenever and whatever he’s comfortable to talk. After settling their clothes down and hanging up towels on the rack, Mingyu carries the world’s patience in his hands. It’s quiet, too quiet that Wonwoo breaks the silence by clicking his glasses off and his lips parting to apologize.

The apology smothers onto the roof of his mouth before it retreats back to his thoughts and from the Mingyu he began to understand this way. He thinks he shouldn’t apologize to Mingyu, after those apologies of feeling some way and Mingyu telling him he doesn’t have to apologize for his emotions, for his heart twisting this way or that, when he knows Mingyu will listen to him, won’t shut his emotions down. He doesn’t look up when he says it’s because he saw Seoyeon’s height on her first birthday “and all the ones I missed out on.”

He blinks away from Mingyu’s sight, at the delicate ghosts of endless circles all over his palm. He draws their digits together, growing into an instinct between them almost, and slots them until no space can be found between their palms.

“You’re here now,” Mingyu reminds him. “You’re celebrating her ninth birthday with her and with the guys,” a kiss to his forehead, “and we can celebrate her tenth,” one above the bridge of his nose, “her eleventh, her twelfth together,” has him leaning into the touch. A more solid press of their palms together mends the words. “There’s nothing we can do about before, Wonwoo, but there’s always now and the future.”

He shouldn’t feel this awful for missing them all when Seoyeon and Mingyu both wanted him to celebrate her birthday with her, to finally be there when she blows out the candles _now_ . That Wonwoo is in their lives this way _now_ and has been for the past years. That _now_ will someday be in their past, just like those years he blames no one but himself for disappearing, and all the now’s he wasn’t present for will be made up with all the ones he will be there for.

He nods his head, but the tear still falls. He feels Mingyu thumb it off and draws himself closer into Mingyu until his arms slip around his shoulders.

Mingyu's promise of showcasing older pictures and videos of Seoyeon steams up the shower walls with a smile Mingyu fails to kiss away each time. Along those lines, for half the time the water runs, Wonwoo forgets about what brought them in the privacy of the cramped bathtub when Mingyu attempts to kiss him once, twice for his, “I want to see older pictures of you, too, Mingyu.”

The white blouse laid on Seoyeon’s bed, split open and untouched in favor of standing on her desk chair in her pajamas and watering her plants along the windowsill, urges his outfit for the day consisting of the white button-up he hung in Mingyu’s closet as he settled in days ago. He pulls it off from the hanger, says he thinks he’ll match with Seoyeon today. In the midst of the last buttons to the base of his neck, asking Mingyu if he should tuck the shirt in or not, Wonwoo tells Mingyu he can pick his phone up for him when Jihoon’s name crawls across the nightstand. But with the beam of Jihoon’s updates on the cake and the conversation has yet to reach its end, Wonwoo picks up Mingyu’s phone when it rings with a name he hasn’t called out in years.

When he answers, he endears for the joke in Jisoo’s voice, “Excuse me, Wonwoo, but I called for Seoyeon.”

It’s been years since he last talked to Jisoo and with quick exchanges of their lives, surprise fluttering through his veins when Jisoo’s not surprised he’s in Seoul and answered _Mingyu's_ phone, instead of across the same country, he makes sure to call Seoyeon over.

The door cracks a peek into the hallway, and he first notices most of Seoyoeon's blouse buttoned. She brings Mingyu’s phone up to her ear, and Wonwoo kneels down to her height to finish off the rest of the buttons for her.

He studies her blouse beneath her “Thank you, Uncle Jisoo.” He moves the two halves of her blouse before snickering at the misalignment of her top, that she skipped one of the top buttons. She must have caught onto the sound that escapes him. When she looks down to his hands, her smile lives off innocence, curving her eyes into the same smiles when he starts to undo the top buttons to reach to the third.

Jisoo’s voice gleams as soft as ever when he hears his “Visit me when you come to Los Angeles, okay?”

Seoyeon nods, agrees that she will one day. He begins to flatten the collars of her blouse, has her moving the phone away from her ear. Jisoo’s voice overtakes any other words in the room when she puts the call on speaker, just as he fixes the ruffles at her wrist. He doesn’t hear the last part when she tells him, “Dad’s fixing my shirt.”

“What about your other dad?” Wonwoo ducks his head from her sight, biting his lower lip to contain the wash of relief and joy down his chest from hearing that single question.

“He’s calling Uncle Jihoon about the cake.”

“Your dad said you’re more into space and stars now, right?” Seoyeon’s eyes steer towards him, and he mirrors the same wide eyes and wide grin of hers that might be guessing what Jisoo is about to say next. “There’s an observatory here, so you can see the stars better at night. It might be different from seeing the stars in Seoul.”

He flattens the creases on her shorts when she leans into him, an arm around his neck. He laughs at the way she loses tension at her legs and completely falls onto his lap, at the way she asks him first before Mingyu. “Can we go to Uncle Jisoo someday?”

Unlike their promised lunchtime start on setting everything up, the doorbell halts all their movements from leaving the apartment and heading downstairs. From the monitor by the door, he outlines Seokmin’s smile above the baby blue box in his hands.

“Seoyeon’s going to run up to me first,” Soonyoung’s voice levels off in confidence.

“No, she’ll run up to me,” Seokmin’s voice echoes unwavering through the speaker. “I have her present right here.”

“Well, I have open arms right here.”

When the door opens for them, after surrendering his will against Soonyoung picking him up into a hug, Soonyoung claps his back, whispers strings of congratulations that plasters a grin on his face. Slides of wrapping paper on granite, he turns around to Seokmin rocking Seoyeon under his arms, side to side, Seoyeon’s arms around his waist just as tight. He paves a path of kisses along the top of her head, floods everyone’s ears with the tune of happy birthday rolling off his tongue like a melody playing straight from their phones.

Only a minute races around the clock for Seokmin’s tune to cut off behind him. The strictness in Seungcheol’s voice ebbs away in each syllable of “Greet your uncle, Yoonhyun, and you, too, Soohyun” as overlays of babbling and the woman’s voice he wished to trade more time and space when they had the chance to rise above it all. Mingyu’s fatherly gasp of “They grew so much” at the front door follows in Soonyoung’s “Daehyun, you really are the oldest." He heads over to the front door, dodges Seoyeon’s quick feet that beat him there on the way.

Five pairs of shoes pile at the bottom of the shoe rack, and Mingyu brushes off Seungcheol’s apologies mute for running space for shoes out of their sight in a second. Three pairs of rubber shoes the size of his fingertips, all forgotten at the door when Seoyeon calls out the triplets’ names in age order. The wind is punched out his lungs, dominoes into everyone else nearly collapsing on the floor, when all three of the triplets barrel over to hug Seoyeon, drawing her across the floor when three hugs at once is too much for her to stay standing.

“Thank you, Daehyun” as she slips her arms around his shoulders, and they can’t help but melt when he rests his forehead against her neck, eyes fluttering shut and about ready to lull into his dreams.

“Be careful, Yoonhyun,” teeters in uncertainty when Seungcheol’s middle one hobbles to stand up and almost topples over the embrace across the floor. When Yoonhyun straightens up, he notices the smallest detail stitched into the triplets’ clothes--the small navy blue circle around _1_ on Daehyun’s white shirt, _2_ on Yoonhyun’s, and _3_ on Soohyun’s.

“Come here, Soohyun,” beneath Seoyeon stretching her other arm out for Yujin’s youngest to crawl into. Yujin’s only daughter forewarns the possibility of wracking out a sob with trembling lips as she sits on Seoyeon’s legs and watches Daehyun receive all the hugs.

Wonwoo doesn’t greet Seungcheol with the practical hello and how he’s been doing with his first and going-on second year of fatherhood. That glow of the first forty-eight hours still illuminating his face, rosy cheeks and the slight tousle of his hair, despite the triplets turning one just months ago. He pulls the eldest into his arms, and his first words almost render him speechless when he finally gathers enough semblance of reality and that he’s here to witness it all, the “They’re so beautiful” that is returned with Seungcheol’s own “They are, Wonwoo, and Seoyeon is, too.”

Seoyeon leads the kids off to her room, and Mingyu advises him to stay in the apartment as he helps Soonyoung unload everything they need out of his car. Yujin’s reassurance that Wonwoo is new to them keeps him company and refuses himself from losing his conviction to open up to the triplets. This means the distant stares from each of the kids, their skipping off to the other side of the apartment, whether towards Seoyeon or their own parents, will become giggling frets from his chasing them once the triplets spend enough time around him.

And when they begin to warm up to him, hinted by his offering of a juice pouch to Yoonhyun, what Mingyu warned Wonwoo about last year still stands true to the dot. As he asks Yujin about going back to work just last winter, the answer loses its directions to him at the tug of his jean leg down. When he drops his eyes, Daehyun scratches soft pads of his fingers as high as he can up his leg, and Yujin can’t contain the chuckle when she lets him in on Daehyun wanting “to be carried by someone tall, like you.”

Not long after bringing Daehyun into his arms, though, it’s Soohyun latching onto his legs, stubby fingers wanting a solid grip onto his jeans on her way down to sitting on his foot. He hops a little to secure Daehyun at his lip, lowers himself down, and gathers her in his arms, too. With two of the triplets in his arms, his eyes wander to the kitchen, where Mingyu settles for a break from lifting out tables by settling Yoonhyun on his own hip, pointing at magnets and papers there.

Mingyu stretches his time with each sound when his finger lands on the magnet from one of his visits, “New York.” And when Yoonhyun’s repetition somewhat resembles the city, he watches Mingyu raise his hand from the refrigerator to caress his palm across the side of Yoonhyun’s small face, leans in closer and drops a kiss to his temple.

Something bursts inside of him, close to his heart, at the sight of the kitchen window generous to halo Mingyu and Yoonhyun right there. It might have been the feather-brush of Mingyu’s digits on Yoonhyun’s cheek or how Yoonhyun falls forward, yearning for the touch. It might be Mingyu containing his smile behind soft baby hairs and dropping a second kiss to Yoonhyun’s temple. He’s not sure what it is that stops the world from spinning or his heartbeats from braking into a healthier pace when Mingyu’s smile reaches across the apartment to where he is.

He also forgets he’s stuck between two kids.

When he snaps out of it, babbling treks from one ear and ends through the other, and he decides there’s nothing else better to do than returning Soohyun’s thorough explanation of “eh-deh-deh” by returning those exact syllables in a question. He returns it, just for Yujin’s suppressed chuckles behind her palms to spiral into a fit of laughter and needing to support herself by wrapping her arms loose around Seungcheol’s waist, burying her face into her husband’s back. Seungcheol’s conversation with Seokmin by the kitchen counter doesn’t hinder a beat as he blankets her palms with both of his own.

Eventually, Minseo arrives with Donghyun and the twins, each of the kids holding a glass container of food. Mingyu hesitates, for a split second, to cave in, to succumb to lifting Yoonhyun into Soonyoung’s arms this time to hug the twins. Quick greetings because the two want to see Seoyeon, Mingyu laughs, anyway, comforts Donghyun that he’s more relieved they’re excited to see Seoyeon, even if he brought her along for a visit just last week. Mingyu says he’ll start heading down to the playground, at the tables there, because that’s where Seoyeon wanted to have her birthday at.

“Nowhere to far,” he explains to him before he slips into his shoes and heads downstairs with Seokmin this time.

A firm handshake with Donghyun and maintaining that promise of kissing Yeeun and Yejoon only on the moles at their cheeks, Minseo strays them away from everyone else and towards the couch. Her two hands clasp onto his under her quiet hopes of him, Mingyu, and Seoyeon being happy. Wonwoo tells himself not to mention the tears lining her eyes, shimmering something far from sadness or dread, when his own eyes betray him.

He thanks Minseo, can’t count how many thank you’s course between the two of them before she releases his hand in favor of a palm scraping in aged blisters and the other soft palm to find their ways onto each of his.

He helps Mingyu’s father lower himself onto the couch, a hand hooked onto his elbow, before Mingyu’s mother settles for the opposite end of the couch and gestures for him to sit in the middle. When he does, he expects a slew of questions because he hasn’t talked to Mingyu’s parents since that one Parents’ Day. But even then, conversations ran sparse with anything past Seoyeon’s own words and Mingyu’s tales of work, Wonwoo’s odd and questionable requests of vows, and their promise of the countryside living off too calm for anything more exciting than recounts from Mingyu, Wonwoo, and Seoyeon.

He turns more towards Mingyu’s father securing a firm hand on his shoulder, massaging the spot there for a couple seconds. Mingyu’s mother sandwiches his hand perched at his knee, rubs the backside of his palm in soothing circles.

The commotion zeroes long behind them. The world around the three of them shuts down against the kids running around, Soonyoung silencing them all with his singing a song he usually steals listens off Seokmin, Minseo and Yujin tossing in their work lives and Yujin’s new life with three times the joy and diapers, Minseo and Mingyu bickering on the phone while she confirms what he’s asking for in the fridge and cabinets.

Hands of the clock don't flinch when Mingyu’s mother inhales deep seconds and wanes out a “Thank you, Wonwoo” that his heart will never be prepared for. With no courage to merely glance up at her, his eyes search for solace at his lap, in her hands keeping his from trembling.

He can't pinpoint what the words are for, what he did. He doesn't ask her, doesn't want his doubts interfere with the calm of having Mingyu's parents around him.

The apartment drowns in a wave of cheers, Yejoon’s “The cake is here!” when he and Mingyu’s parents turn to the front door. Junhui, Minghao, and Jihoon shy into a barricade of greetings, especially with Seoyeon running straight into Jihoon, the collision dropping the white box almost. A minute or two after, Seoyeon tiptoes to the monitor and her words clash together to call out to each person on the screen--her Uncle Bohyuk, her Auntie Yerin, her “Grandpa” that has Mingyu’s father searching for Seoyeon’s voice, her “Grandma” that halts the volume of the apartment any louder because it’s followed by his own mother’s voice.

Mingyu’s father pats his knee, tells him he should go say hi to everyone who just arrived. The steady hand on his knee juxtaposes the tear he pats off his face.

Wonwoo doubts this one voice his ears strain to grab onto every sound, and perhaps it’s his imagination overwhelming him at the moment. The top of Chan’s head hovers close to his own younger brother’s, and when they all manage their ways inside, dodging shoes lining up on either sides of the short hall there, Seoyeon runs up to Chan first, screams out a shrill “Uncle Chan!” that anchors her into his arms with ease and hugging her on his way up, his palm solid between her shoulder blades.

“You grew so much since the last time we saw each other, Seoyeon,” he endears into brushing her hair behind her ear as she wraps her legs around his waist. He faces his cheek towards her, and she pecks his cheek with no hesitation. Chan leans over to Bohyuk, to Yerin, to Wonwoo's parents for their fair share of a kiss from Seoyeon.

He guides his parents over to the couch, after his mother’s “your daughter’s birthday” as he hugs her and his father’s eyes glossing all over his face, a smile rest-assured hanging on since he first stepped inside. He pulls Bohyuk in a hug and threatens him out the apartment when he’s lifted off his feet a second time. Yerin seems to never age a day since he last saw her, still dubious about calling Seoyeon his daughter.

He smiles, understands the time away that makes everything feel like it's not real, feels the pat at his arm when he dusts her worries aside.

Birthday greetings continue to be thrown left and right without the presence of the person actually celebrating it, so he waders into the hallway and calls out to Seoyeon. Her door opens in a second, and he clears up the hall to allow a clear route into the living room with a paper box in her hand. She pushes a chair to the kitchen counter, the only spot occupied without a container of food, a bag of vegetables, or a box of cake there. She sits on her knees and opens the box up.

When he steps behind her, places a hand on her shoulder to prevent her from reclining too far back, he looks down at her box filled with paper carnations, each tacked on with a white strip. From where he stands, he reads the _Uncle Seungcheol_ attached to a red paper carnation, _Auntie Yerin_ with an orange one, _Auntie Yujin_ matching with Seungcheol’s, _Grandma (Dad), Grandma (Daddy), Grandpa (Daddy), Grandpa (Dad)_ from that top layer of carnations alone. She darts around the apartment to give each adult in the room their designated carnation, even down to her Uncle Chan and Uncle Bohyuk.

At his own mother’s turn, he conceals himself at the corner of the living room, box in his hand to ease each of her trips on her feet and rare on paper cuts. His mother gathers Seoyeon into her arms and punctuates the realization of “It’s your birthday, Seoyeon, but you’re the one giving us presents” with quick pecks along her hair and cheeks.

The air in the apartment fills past the brink and saviors of cracking a window when Jeonghan arrives with a box wrapped in vintage style, tie loose around his neck and shirt unbuttoned at the top. For the first time in a decade, maybe even nearing two, Jeonghan greets him with the blush of teases grazing his cheeks that settles down to an embrace that should have knocked the two of them to the floor. Jeonghan steadies the two of them when Wonwoo nearly trips into someone skipping behind him, one of the younger kids.

“I can’t believe I missed you twice,” Jeonghan exhausts in defeat. He pleads the words of “There’s nothing to be sorry about” into Jeonghan when he learns the older’s home is a tad further than most of the guys’ here today.

Fanning himself with his shirt, Jeonghan offers to bring the kids outside and watch them play at the playground. They are all unsure about his idea, especially when Jeonghan admits he just came from work in Suwon. But when Seokmin and Soonyoung offer to come down and watch them, the burden lessens.

By the time Seoyeon plops herself in front of the shoe rack, the only carnations left in her box are for Jisoo, Hansol, and Seungkwan. With a near-empty box, Wonwoo scratches his head, questions the forgiveness and pity of the universe to lead their families and most of the guys here today.

It costs a few borrowed tables from Minghao’s work and chairs from Soonyoung’s, but somehow, they make it all work. Enough seats for everyone at the grass in front of the apartment complex and under an older tree, not too far from the playground and doesn’t drain too much energy for the kids if they want to run back for a quick sip of water. He and Mingyu chase up and down the apartment and the lobby, with the help of Junhui, Minghao, and Jihoon this time. They offer the first seats to Wonwoo’s and Mingyu’s parents, the next to Seungcheol and Yujin, and they share grins into the reflection of the elevator walls when Minghao reminds them that “It’s Seungcheol, afterall.”

Once they get the portable grill going at Seokmin’s table, Seoyeon stops staring at the beef as her name sparks up from across the grass. When Wonwoo scans around, he spots Jaewon and Jaehyun running on the field, each gripping onto a small box above their heads and shrieks over their hearts. Mingyu hurries up to their mother, to Soyoung he offered an awfully compacted introduction some years ago. He watches them laugh before Mingyu gestures directly at him. It’s an uncertain path on uneven grass and with her dress bundled up in a fist and her shoes not made for an occasion like this, Mingyu offers a hand out to her and guides her to the table.

A take on greetings, a twist in introductions, the conversation buries his chin to his chest when she claps her hands together above “You were in New York City when Mingyu told me about you.”

Mingyu’s cheeks tinge into a shy pink when words fail him this time. Because this time, his “I’m still shy to call him my husband” is one neither of them are ready to say just yet.

Wonwoo isn’t sure how many of Seoyeon’s friends are coming to her birthday but when three more arrive and Seoyeon gathers her friends and her cousins under the playground, he thinks that should be everyone. They cycle through a couple more rounds of introductions to their parents, each finishing off with Mingyu’s promise that they have more than enough people here to take care of them.

He spreads out the picnic mat on the grass because he figures the kids would want to sit here instead of the table. When the kids do rush over to the mat, it’s Seoyeon caught in the middle of her four friends, plus half of Yeeun in Jaewon’s lap and Yejoon leaning onto the arm of Seoyeon’s classmate. His name slips from Wonwoo’s mind and disappears into the void until Seoyeon covers her mouth from rice spilling over, warns him with “Hansol, Yejoon’s watermelon is dripping on you.”

Seated between the table and the picnic mat, Wonwoo tosses half the conversation from Chan painting cities he toured in but none of them ever visited and the other half to all the bugs Jaewon caught in the park near her home. The chatter ricochets across tabletops and empty soda cans, his and Mingyu’s parents stuck in a deep talk at the next table over about recommended brands of tea and which ones to drink for when now that they’re reaching that age.

Seungcheol spoon feeds Yoonhyun from his lap, consists mostly of prodding the baby spoon to his lips until his son opens up. It stirs a market between the two tables of the guys, bargains with their persuasion to have someone other than the triplets’ own parents feeding Yoonhyun, to alleviate the tasks of parenthood just this one day. At the other side of the tables, Daehyun nibbles on a cracker Bohyuk pinched between his fingers just seconds ago, and Soohyun meanders this late-lunch into leaning into Seokmin’s chest and fighting off sleep when he doesn’t notice himself humming.

With almost everyone here, Wonwoo swallows hard for the distance traveled, the hours piled up just to be here.

He drops himself back into the conversation, and he’s close on threatening Soonyoung for teasing how long it took for him and Mingyu to propose to each other when they all snap their heads towards the parking lot corner of the lawn.

Seoyeon places her plate on the mat and runs across the field before any of them can discover the reason why.

“Uncle Hansol!” she shrieks for the second time today. Their Hansol opens his arms out for her but a step or two from colliding with her, he steers to the side and runs away from her, lets her chase him all around the lawn until he stops at the dead-end of the table with an apology for being late. It’s an apology everyone waves off, through the worried exhale of dropping Sofia at the airport today.

Junhui and Soonyoung drag their chairs apart to bring another up for Hansol. But before he has the chance to sit down, to greet everyone properly, the beginnings of reaching out for Yujin is interrupted with a groan, to Seoyeon catching up to him with her arms slinging around his waist, hugging him from behind. The yellow square box in his hand nearly falls to the grass if it weren’t for Junhui’s nimble reflexes.

“Happy birthday, Seoyeon,” he finally greets her. Hansol swings Seoyeon’s hand in his, as high as her shorter arms can reach into the brink-of-summer air. “Do you remember what you told me last time?”

Seoyeon’s eyes blank out in thought before they widen, and her eyes completely lose from their sights when her single second of laughter erupts even more from everyone else, even from where their parents anchor themselves for tea leaves. “Did you really?” she finally gives herself space to breathe.

“Open it later and find out.”

After Seoyeon skips back to the picnic mat, “You stole my name” steals the attention from the yellow box, and their Hansol sits on the picnic mat.

“Do you want it back?” elicits a snort through Wonwoo’s nose by the nonchalance of it his reaction, Mingyu leaning into his shoulder and crumbling against his arm.

A game of thumb of war their Hansol purposely loses brings back some news to the table that he has no name for today, per Hansol’s request. They make sure to pile more meat onto Hansol’s plate, double the stack of perilla leaves, especially after Seokmin passed on grilling responsibilities to Minghao in favor of cradling Soohyun.

“Honestly,” Soonyoung breaks the light of air under the tree with a sigh, eyes darting between him and Mingyu, “Seoyeon’s birthday feels different this time.”

Minghao nods, bringing a cup of water to Daehyun beside him. The gentlest smile soothes Wonwoo’s chest from the weight, at Daehyun’s small palms clinging onto Minghao’s slender digits. Daehyun plants his palms over Minghao’s fingers even after he pulls his face away from the cup. The gentle gesture is nearly forgotten at his voice slapping down a reality check for all of them at this moment, “Look, we have Wonwoo here with us. We have Seungcheol and Yujin, too.”

“Seoyeon has her best friends here.”

“And even Mingyu’s parents came from the countryside.” Through bites of perilla, Junhui lifts a hand in forgiveness for not remembering exactly where.

“Wonwoo's and Bohyuk’s parents came from Changwon.”

Yujin knocks her shoulders against Yerin's. “Bohyuk finally let us meet Yerin, too.”

“Chan, you had a show in Busan just last night.”

“Bohyuk called me last night, but I didn’t answer because I fell asleep in the van,” Chan explains, one index finger out and wiggling for Daehyun to hold onto. “But then, Yerin called me this morning again and if it wasn’t for him, I don’t think I would have been able to come.”

“Plus, Yujin and Seungcheol came with the triplets.”

That statement alone brings Yujin to dabbing a piece of tissue at the corner of her eyes until Seungcheol brushes her hair to the side, thumbs it off for her. Wonwoo claps his hands together when Yoonhyun turns to him, leaves his palms up and open, and he brings Yoonhyun into his arms to let him handle things one at a time. Yoonhyun doesn’t fret when Wonwoo sets him on his lap, merely giggles when Mingyu turns to him and tickles a fingertip at his neck.

Seungcheol leans over, kisses Yujin’s temple before whispering something into her ear. She nods, and he laces them together under the table, off the periphery of everyone's views.

Wonwoo’s phone rings in his pocket and when Mingyu picks it up for him, he sends Seungkwan on speaker.

“Where’s Seoyeon?” has everyone combusting at the table, and Wonwoo feels bad for trying not to laugh at Yujin falling into Yerin’s shoulder when the younger almost spits out her water.

How many years have passed since he last heard this many people sing “Happy Birthday” all at once?

Wonwoo would have never thought his first time hearing it like this, one of the simplest songs in the universe, would be in Seoyeon’s birthday. He would have never thought he’d forget to sing half the words as Seoyeon reaches out for his hand and pulls him closer to the table, closer to where she stands before the two cakes waiting for their wishes untold. He would have never thought he would stand behind Seoyeon as she leans over, blows out the candles. He would have never thought the first person she looks up to after Mingyu tells her to think of her wish, after the flames kindle out would be him.

The night winds down to the pile of presents at the end of the couch, but when he asks her which one Seoyeon wants to open first, she points at the one in his luggage to open. When he brings her gift over to the couch, all the strength in her muscles evaporate to fall into his arms. He brushes off her thank you’s, and he’s more than glad for her excitement to try it out.

After stuffing everything into containers that can actually fit in the fridge, he follows behind Mingyu to Seoyeon’s room, to ask if there’s anything else she wants to eat before she goes to bed. A knock on the door but no answer, the lights basking into her walls and ceilings but not a sound, Mingyu slowly pushes the door open until he snickers. He swings her door wide open for Wonwoo to come upon Seoyeon lying on her stomach across her playmat, blanket bunched at her waist and pages from the flipbook arching in front of her. Her clipboard wedges itself under her elbow, deep breaths drawing into the pillow she hugs under her other arm.

Dreams trapping her sound asleep, Wonwoo crouches by her and gently moves her onto her back, slips his arms under her shoulders and knees, lifts her up in his arms and lays her on the bed. He drags the blanket up to her shoulders, but he can’t help but frown at the slight scowl forming across her eyes. Whatever summons it--a threat of a nightmare, maybe an upset stomach from stretching her stomach today, or the ache in her bones from running around with her friends and cousins today--he hopes it will disappear soon.

Behind him, Mingyu dusts eraser shavings from the clipboard and into the trash can propped next to her desk. Organizing the pages along her desk in order just the way they found it.

He brushes her fringe from her forehead, leans over to kiss her forehead, and he watches the scowl slowly fade.

Wonwoo assumes that not too long after arriving in Seoul, his conscience must have grown accustomed to Seoyeon sleeping between them that he slips onto his side of the bed and a little far from Mingyu. Mingyu drums his fingertips across the mattress, reminds them that Seoyeon fell asleep in her own room this night. And with that tossed in the night hair between them, they meet in the middle of the bed.

Mingyu tips his chin up, no rush at his lips when he kisses him, captures enough time for Wonwoo to slip a hand at his jaw. “Thank you for taking the time to come to Seoul,” he whispers over his lips.

Wonwoo reaches out to him again, bumping their noses and silencing the breathy chuckles when Mingyu plucks his glasses off and sets them on the nightstand. “I didn't want to miss another one.”

“When you were helping Seungcheol bring the triplets up for a nap, Seoyeon told me it’s her best birthday,” wears down his worries into a smile. “She says that every year, but I asked her why this time, and she said it was because so many of us were there.”

He runs his fingers through Mingyu’s hair. “Almost everyone was there.”

“It felt like it, though,” Mingyu says, tracing a fingertip along his chin, down his jaw, eyes fixated on following where his hand wanders, and if they weren't so close, he would mirror his ministrations, “with Jisoo and Seungkwan calling.” Mingyu’s words fall silent, eyes tracing everything. “Thank you for making her birthday wish come true, Wonwoo.”

Wonwoo believes it’s not just Seoyeon’s birthday wish that gets granted today. Wonwoo didn’t feel a wall build from the distance this time, and it must have been some sort of fate that the world tied a string around each of their fingers to be friends from their university years and beyond. His heart never edged towards palpitating, especially when none of them pitched in any questions towards him about life in New York City. It's as if he never left Seoul.

Mingyu refuses to stare anywhere past his face and when he asks if there’s anything on his skin there, ghosts the question over Mingyu’s lips this time, Mingyu cups his face, pulls him closer, kisses him slowly. Wonwoo closes his eyes, reaches up to Mingyu’s hands, slides his palms just up to his wrists, and joins his hands there steady.

When Mingyu pulls back, Wonwoo leaning in to chase after his lips, Mingyu presses their foreheads together. It’s solid; it’s there. Mingyu is right there. “I wanted to do that for so long.”

Wonwoo raises his eyebrows at him. “What stopped you?”

“I was-I don’t know,” has Wonwoo kissing him once more at his loss for words, embarrassed buds of his cheeks when his jaw work for an answer against his palms. “I think I’m still trying to convince myself you’re here.”

Wonwoo stops, lets himself melt into the shape of Mingyu against him. “I’m right here, Mingyu.”

They don’t stop their kisses from traveling south. He learns that pressing his lips along Mingyu’s neck startles a flare down his chest, startles uncertain grips across his own bare back. But the kisses across his chest startles something far from his preconceptions of kissing.

Skittering kisses down Mingyu’s neck before he trails them across his collarbone, never forgets to come back up every few and leave one at his lips. And from then on, he goes lower, down to the center of his chest, over the pounding of his heart. With the skin of Mingyu's chest against his lips, he can't ignore the rushed beats. When he looks up, between their hands pressed against the mattress, Wonwoo hurries to shake their hands off, to thumb the tears off Mingyu’s shut eyes.

Wonwoo holds his face in his hands, runs his thumbs under Mingyu’s eyes, and waits for him. Deep breaths and no questions at all for Mingyu to flutter his eyes open and look up to him, the gleam and trail of tears prominent against his skin.

Right then and there, after all this time, Wonwoo realizes there’s still so much of Mingyu he doesn’t know. Despite the rings on their left hands and Mingyu admitting he formed a close bond with his daughter the fastest, knowing the fallout of that bond perhaps more than anyone else who acknowledges Mingyu and Seoyeon, there’s still so much he doesn’t know. But despite the gut feeling there’s so much he to know about Mingyu, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to try learning all the ones Mingyu allows him to.

He finally risks the question out. “What’s wrong, Mingyu?”

Mingyu shakes his head between his hands. “Nothing,” he rasps out, “nothing’s wrong.”

He delves time all over Mingyu’s face--the swallow locked in his throat before every attempt for a word, flutter of his eyes back shut after every failed syllable. Mingyu squeezes his eyes shut, and he catches those tears before they roam anywhere past his face.

He thinks Mingyu will let his thoughts call it a night.

When Mingyu opens his eyes a second time, it’s followed by a quiet “I love you, Wonwoo” that he isn’t afraid to return back, isn’t afraid to say it’s something he already knows about Mingyu.

A couple more kisses, Mingyu whines “Do we really have to put our shirts back on?” in the hush that he refutes only with “If Seoyeon comes in the middle of the night and sees us like this, wouldn’t it be weird?” He thinks Mingyu sitting up and kissing the corner of his shoulder would have been enough to convince him out of his own notions, but he sticks by his stance.

Moonlight shelters them this time, both of them forgetting to bring the curtains together all the way. He squints at the rough marks on Mingyu’s skin, scratches from who knows where and sacrificing oil splatters up his arms for meals, until he eventually shelters Mingyu’s heart under his palm.

Wonwoo slides his hand up and rubs the dried tears off his face with his fingertips. His hand lingers there, enough for Mingyu to completely etch the side of his face onto his palm.

“Mingyu?”

Lethargy in his eyes when he blinks, Mingyu looks up to him. “Hmm?”

“I love you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading! :D
> 
> i have the urge to just fast forward wonu's trip but i shan't. with seoyeon's birthday on may 27, i hoped to update on or before her birthday. i overestimated myself bc my finals were on the same week as her birthday. i'm sorry to the person i said i would post it on her birthday :c despite that, i hope you can take this as a late birthday present from seoyeon! (there is a kinda special and highkey cheesy reason as to why she was born on that day òwó)
> 
> this chapter is relatively short, but i think it's just my struggling to write things on the happier side that took a while sdlkfjd
> 
> again, here's the [blm carrd](https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/) and [anti-terrorism bill card](https://junkterrorbill.carrd.co/)!! i hope kinder days will come but til then, stay safe physically, emotionally, and mentally


	4. 2034

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first days after Seoyeon's birthday, Wonwoo hopes the world would grant him more of these mornings, days, minutes in the near future than what the plane ticket really has left saved for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! after doubting my writing for the past few months, there's finally an update! it's been a while...i'm sorry :c but i hope you're all doing great!
> 
> it's been a long while, so i created a [write.as](https://write.as/miniinfinity/) to put in things i cut out from fics or to just dump in ideas that i can't push myself to flesh out into full fics. there are a few posts there--including one i wrote in the outline of love stuck but didn't put it in the final thingy and the tiny stories wonwoo told seoyeon (because i never wrote them anywhere besides this fic, so i have to hunt for them)
> 
> anyway, here are a couple of **warnings** : there's like undertones of homophobia and talks about jihye/the divorce

When the world comes through the wall of his sleep-pressed fringe, eleven in the morning surprises him. Eleven in the morning is a much later hour than what the three of them have been waking up to in Seoul or New York City. Curtains dim the bedroom to trespassing sunlight at the window edges. An arm around his chest but Mingyu lying at the other side of the bed, scowling at his phone for the brightness or for simply the hour, he wonders what hour Seoyeon crawled into bed with them.

The urge to throw the blanket over his head and sink back into the pillows doesn’t rouse in him like most of his mornings do. He’s not sure why exactly; it might be diffusing all his dreams with Seoyeon over his arm or Mingyu just fingertips away from his reach, just at the end of that same arm. It might be deliberating where what he sees behind his eyes meets with what he’s really seeing, hearing, touching in front of him.

Wonwoo squints in the bare lights his eyes grasps onto and searches for Seoyeon’s hand in the overpass of afternoon, croaks out a “What’s wrong?” to Mingyu that gets him stirring.

If the extra hours of sleep aren’t against him, he thinks the scowl loosens at Mingyu’s eyes as he pats the back of her hand molding into the shape of his chest, bit by bit over the snicker through Mingyu’s nose and sliding the phone back on the nightstand. “We slept through my alarm.”

He scans Mingyu up and down at the idea of setting up an alarm on his phone because he can’t recall a morning where Mingyu really needed to start his day up to one. Not since Wonwoo has been here, at least. “You had an alarm?”

Then again, Mingyu always rises before he does, wakes up before being hit with the revelation that opening his eyes or rolling out of bed are some of his options.

He closes his eyes to drown the world into Mingyu’s laugh just Seoyeon’s reach away, rather than an entire ocean’s sprint and still missing it all entirely with exhausted legs and collapsing on the ground. Three days have sneaked their ways into the back of his mind already, has him fooling himself for time to be much faster than he believes and wishing for it all to slow down for him, only for these two weeks he has with Mingyu and Seoyeon.

The seconds stir the hand on his chest to sink fingerprints down, for Seoyeon to rub her face on the pillow they partially share through the night and up until this minute. She leans her forehead onto the corner of his shoulder, groans into his arm until it teems into a shrill groan for the new day, a new morning. He drops the urge to bring her close, fends off his desires of surprising her with a tight embrace so soon after waking up and sending that shrill groan into complete murder of their serenity. He tries to hide his smirk behind his pinched lips. When he glances past the ruffle of pillowcases and the cloud of Seoyeon’s sleepy spider web of hair across the pillows, he outlines the ridges of Mingyu’s knuckles among the shadow across his face, his palm covering his mouth as he wishes to stifle his own laughter from forcing the new morning on the three of them all at once.

Exchanges of morning greetings, shifting on his side to kiss Seoyeon a good morning on her forehead that sends her digging her face into his chest, he hopes the world would grant him more of these mornings, days, minutes in the near future than what the plane ticket really has left saved for him. Mingyu reaches out to brush her hair back from her face, and his fingertip lingering to poke her spine kicks her into curling up closer against him. The start of her day walling up her throat cuts off her shriek, and her fingers latch onto his shirt tighter at his chest, buries her face even deeper and farther from Mingyu’s teasing threats.

It all swathes her voice when she asks him if they still have barbecue.

Wonwoo recalls last night of packing leftovers with Mingyu, knocking shoulders as sleep knocked at Seoyeon’s bedroom door before either one of them, and shoving food in the fridge before realizing there wasn’t much to store in the first place. Portions of food traveled across the country--off in Seoul definitely to energize Seokmin and Junhui for today’s shift, to Incheon with Jeonghan on his day off, bits snaking their highways back to Daegu more for the triplets than for Seungcheol and Yujin combined, and even trailing in Changwon for Bohyuk, Yerin, and his parents. Not even a dollop of icing from either cakes sent anywhere else, not after they had no other choice but to throw those empty paper boxes away.

“Can we have some for breakfast?”

They don’t even attempt to conceal their laughter this time, their voices scratching in all the wrong tones because it’s too soon to belt out so much, especially when Mingyu scoots himself closer and asks if it’s the first thing she thought of after waking up.

She shakes her head and pulls herself away from his chest, head tilted towards Mingyu this time but her hand lingering on the valley of his chest. He draws an endless circle over the back of her palm, waiting for that single stroke to finally tickle her into their sunshine, but it doesn’t come. “It’s the second thing. I wanted cake, but we ate it all.”

Mingyu gasps, lightly jabbing her ribs. “Can you believe we finished both cakes?”

She defends herself under each jab of fingertips, her hand escaping from his as she hides herself under her crossed arms over her face. The sleeves of Wonwoo’s shirt she capes on shies her smile from his view but lets the giggle mellow out. Her giggle streams cool and soothing between his and Mingyu’s shoulders. The sleeves slide down her shorter arms, bundling close to both sides of her face, and he doesn’t add any more onto her misery and Mingyu’s joy when she squeals into her pleas to stop it all, that her stomach hurts from laughing _only_ this much already.

When she crawls off the bed for the bathroom and the space dwindles off the shine of Seoyeon’s smile, the vacancy revives too much of a sad thought between them, can’t help those sad thoughts from last night running into this morning. He wants to ask Mingyu but with Seoyeon around, with Seoyeon not too far away from grasping onto wandering syllables of their conversation, he should wait. In those few minutes to spare with only the two of them, he rolls over to the other side of the bed until his shoulder bumps into Mingyu’s shoulder and stops him completely from going any farther.

“How are you feeling?” he asks quietly, squints under the pockets of light that wheedles in to outline Mingyu rubbing his eye.

Mingyu paves a hand down the side of his face. His fingertips trace his lips along the way with the ink of summertime that he glows in until it stops at the junction of his neck and shoulder. “Can we talk about it later?”

He leans forward, drops a kiss and never contemplates a hunch about where it lands on Mingyu. Warm skin whispering into his lips, Mingyu pulls him under his arms, pulling in a kiss from Wonwoo onto his cheek this time. He assures him that he will wait for whenever later may be and for whenever to stumble into Mingyu’s thoughts without apprehensions ridding him from a steady step forward. He retraces those words again, that it doesn’t have to be now and it doesn’t have to be today, either. And as he voices this out to Mingyu, the shape of a kiss prints onto his forehead, the slightest stretch of a smile proofed there.

Seoyeon’s few minutes in the bathroom stretches to more fragments of the clock and when they head out to the hallway to check on her, the bathroom door remains open into the gray bathroom with lights off and Seoyeon nowhere in sight. One door down, Mingyu raps knuckles on her door and as he pushes it open, Wonwoo sneaks his eyes over the slope of his shoulder. The door spans up to Seoyeon’s combed hair facing them from the seat at her desk, drawing away with her artwork nowhere privy to their lines of sight. Her foot under her thigh, her toes wiggle from beneath the oversized laps of his shirt.

In the kitchen, Wonwoo blinks at the sight of Seoyeon pouring rice grains into the pot, cursing at time for never waiting for him to mark off each centimeter that Seoyeon grows into and to each new thing she learns a day. And when the rice cooker finally sings with shoots of steam, just as he and Mingyu start bringing the pot over to the dining table, they satiate their marvels of how Seoyeon’s flipbook is going. They both mention that she seems busier after being gifted the flipbook and gamble their attempts of sneaking a summary of it any time soon.

“It’s a secret,” she whispers with her grin hiding behind the glass cup in her hand.

Wonwoo tests the world of how much innocence runs from her arched eyes grinning with her lips and the sleeves of his shirt sliding past her elbows when she brings the cup back down. He tests the world of how much more of it can trickle from the hidden knot of her hair by her ear and the excited clap of her hands together when Mingyu centers the reheated barbecue on the table. He doesn’t know how much more Seoyeon has of it and how much more the world will bottle up in her, but he only knows that part of it must be making its way to his heart.

He snaps back to the news of her flipbook left unknown to them. They don’t pry anything about it out of her; it’s the last thing he wants to do to her and her creativity. They do promise that they will wait for her story if she ever wants to tell them about it, that they will be here if teasing of a hint of the story she’s been creating without words this time comes up in her mind.

“Do you want to open the rest of your presents, Seoyeon?” Mingyu asks her in the living room.

From the dining chair Wonwoo resolves for most of this afternoon, above Mingyu’s old camera he hopes to get accustomed to the grip and gears on, he returns Seoyeon’s smile from across the apartment when she stands up and flashes her teeth and gums below the mustard-yellow beanie and purple circular glasses. His mind spins him back to those pictures of Hansol and the absurdity of the phone cases during their university days. The memory from over a decade ago overlaid with the present Seoyeon combust his stomach aching for the last bits of laughter out of his system for the entire day, for mercy out of all this laughter. He loses sight of the apartment and his entire body can’t keep himself sitting up at the fact that _these_ are what Hansol gifted her for her birthday, that these are what they snickered about yesterday. His stomach burns even harder when he discovers Mingyu at the entrance of the living room, on his hands and knees and his lungs begging for air through his contagious laughter.

“You look like Uncle Hansol,” Mingyu barely makes it coherent for the two of them. The words squeak all around throughout the apartment when Seoyeon mimics Hansol’s unbothered expression from that cursed phone case, and something about the sound and Mingyu’s smile unhindered soothe the aches across his stomach and sides.

She unearths immediate awe in the nail polish set Jaewon gifted her, though, finally bringing their abdomens to a long-awaited repose as she paints her right hand immediately after opening her gift. But when it’s time to paint her left hand, Wonwoo migrates from the dining table to the coffee table, tinkering with the camera there, not too far from Mingyu’s trained eyes and parted lips as he brushes white onto her nails. When Mingyu begins to blow a thin stream of air across her nails, she replaces it with her own. Mingyu stands up with leftover thought-trains of the laundry basket filling up.

As the sound of her thinning exhales and deep inhales hit the wall of an abrupt halt, he glances away from the coiling rolls of film in his hands and to the perfect white-painted nails nearing the edges of his periphery. He lowers everything in his hands onto the table with Seoyeon’s shy question of “Can I paint your nails, Dad?”

Just then, the camera parts and the entire set of nail polish bottles rattle over the table. Mingyu plops himself at the coffee table, his knee right on top of Wonwoo’s in the haste of the question not directly for him, and asks with batting eyelashes, “Do you want to paint mine, too?”

Wonwoo pretends to kick him out of the coffee table for his own session at Seoyeon’s nail salon, solidifying his reason only with “She said _‘Dad’_ this time, not ‘Daddy’” and “Wait for your turn” that rightfully deserves Mingyu sticking his tongue at him. He slides the entire nail polish set to her, "You can pick the color for me, Seoyeon," any color because he won’t mind as long as it sparks that eye-twinkling joy and fascination in her.

Her absolute focus lightens his heart the second she curls her shorter fingers under his and drips the first dot of purple on his thumbnail. A focused Seoyeon is narrowed eyes only for his hands as she tries not to let the brush betray her and let purple streak his skin. A scowl soon knits into her face above parted lips of concentration, a replica of Mingyu just minutes ago, until it’s time for her to stream soft rushes of air onto his nails.

If Wonwoo skips past the kisses all over her face for a wonderful job as they wait, purple polish paints slightly uneven on his nails, with some purple charring his cuticles that will be easy to peel off later in their day. So when Seoyeon lays a gentle tap on his nail with the pad of her forefinger, cheers that the polish is all dry, he thanks her a thousand times over with what kisses alone won’t suffice. He maps out the light in her eyes when she looks up to him and the beam at her lips, reminds himself that he’s the reason for them and it’s something he shouldn’t convince himself otherwise. Not as she admits that her nail-work isn’t perfect, but it’s her first time painting nails. Not as she asks him what color he thinks Daddy would like his nails to be. Not as she crawls from the other side of the coffee table to fall into his lap. Not as she sends the entire afternoon into an embrace and the two of them basking in each other flat on the floor. Not as she settles the side of her face against his chest and asks to hold his hand, to see their finished nails together.

Sleep summons Seoyeon first before reaching for the two of them for another night. It takes lying down with Seoyeon for an hour until they hear the languid breaths foreboding those light snores, trading more “Would you rather” questions to extinguish the day’s sparks in her eyes every time she squeezes Wonwoo’s hand in hers and giggles about their colored nails. It takes Wonwoo gritting his teeth, meticulous unfurling of Seoyeon’s hand from his, and flipping her over on her back because of her forehead leaning into the curve of Mingyu’s spine. It’s one of those quicker nights of sending her to sleep and perhaps it’s simply from dedicating the entire day to cleaning the remnants of her birthday party.

The soundless battle of keeping the mattress from dipping and rising too suddenly sends the two of them standing at the end of the bed together. Slipping in glances between checking if Seoyeon will wake up or not. Slipping his hand into Mingyu’s and Mingyu slipping his digits between his. When Seoyeon remains tucked under the blanket without a kick of stretch for either one of them, they open the door a centimeter at a time to silence the click of the handle, the squeak of the hinges, their sneaking out of the bedroom.

When they step into the kitchen, the space is foreign between them, the expanse between the ends of the kitchen not settling pleasant in his guts. He hasn’t felt a space from Mingyu this far since his last trip here, the start of what they have now. Rubbing the sides of his own arms, it soothes his heart in the worst way to dodge Mingyu’s eyes as he leafs out the words in his mind--which ones to let out and which ones to keep inside with him, which ones will pull the distance between them into forgetting it's there for them in the first place.

He steals a glance at Mingyu with the question of the night, “Can I ask about yesterday?” He pushes at the bridge of his glasses up out of instinct. “Or just last night?”

Nerves flare everywhere in him as Mingyu resorts to the thumbnail under his teeth, his gaze falling somewhere below them, the pinks of Mingyu’s lips and the whites of his teeth fight over the gloss of red there. He just hopes Seoyeon won’t be disappointed that her smooth nail-work didn’t last very long, especially after their long contemplation of what color to dip Mingyu’s nails in. “I was overwhelmed?” Mingyu’s mouth releases out over a bite and engraves a jagged nail, the click of the bite loud at this hour not a second after.

“Was I bad?” Wonwoo deadpans, but Mingyu shakes his head over his nail.

Mingyu’s gaze still refuses to meet his eyes halfway, even when he drops his hand to the side, chips of nail polish twirling onto the tile. “I felt-” Mingyu’s eyes storm all over the floor and the next thought escapes into a single, pressurized breath- “I don’t know, Wonwoo.” A scratch at his head with the same hand he sunk his teeth into, chuckles airy and nervous, it all makes Wonwoo smile just to have something to do, to hide his own storm brewing in his guts for the answer. He’s unsure what to do, if he should be worried or scared because Mingyu _cried_ from his doing. “It was-this is cheesy. It was a kind of love I haven’t felt, and I didn’t know what to do because-” his eyes scavenge the floor for something, his next words perhaps- “because...do you remember when you’d tell me something’s too good to be real?”

When Mingyu does look up, short treads of his vision in trepidation to finally meet his now, Wonwoo doesn’t realize the smile on his own face means something this time. He’s figured, somewhere in their hidden secrets of New York City, that Mingyu loves these touches of affection, the spectrum with brushes of fingertips and the grand gesture of a kiss and so much more. Wonwoo has tiptoed his way out of his own comforts of intimacy and learned more of these boundaries of where these touches can go between him and Mingyu, but he has never considered that any of them would send tears like this. But he thinks if this is how Mingyu feels loved the most, if this is what overwhelms Mingyu with notions of love, if this is what tattoos those words into his skin and in his mind, he thinks he should take even a few seconds of his day just to remind Mingyu this way.

Their eyes journey from the floor at their toes to meet above the countertops and Seoyeon’s workbooks forgotten there. All the while, Mingyu’s palms scramble to cover his face with his hands, building a barrier of red nail polish and golden skin and vanished blues of their heavy hearts. Wonwoo crosses the distance of the kitchen until there’s barely enough space for their hands to hold between their rising chests, descending worries.

And he waits for Mingyu.

He waits behind the partition of his fingertips covering his eyes, behind the palms that can’t block out the buds of his cheeks in what he hopes capture a smile. When Mingyu finally lowers his hands from his face, the smile grows into a mirror, and Wonwoo breaks that reflection just to send a soft, lingering kiss on Mingyu’s cheek.

\----

The first school day following Seoyeon’s birthday dawns on them with endless yawns tumbling out of Mingyu’s mouth. Wonwoo offers to drive Seoyeon to school this time and for some odd reason, when Seoyeon grasps onto their groggy conversation by the stove, the suggestion leaves her steps with a bit of a hop at her heels and her ponytail swinging side-to-side higher to her shoulders. Her excitement alone urges them in the car ten minutes earlier than the school days before today, convinces something in Mingyu enough to trade places from the driver’s seat this once.

At the last red light before her elementary school, after following Mingyu’s verbal directions and his brain barely clinging onto sporadic histories of this building or that business, he glances to Mingyu’s faint smile reflected from the passenger’s seat window. He lets the histories bubble up in the car, even when his own mind struggles to startle awake, because Mingyu seems to be enjoying it and he refuses to ruin any of it.

“I never saw Dad drive me to school before,” Seoyeon reminds them after he parks the car at her school, just before her kiss on Mingyu’s cheek then onto his own cheek for a good day of class. “You’ll be there after school, right?”

He reaches out to her, brings her face close for a kiss on her cheek this time. “I’ll be here, Seoyeon.”

She melts into his hands, baby skin of her cheek along the lines of his palms and her chin at his shoulder. “Are you picking me up later, too?”

“Maybe.” The weight of the world sinks into his palms as he feels her wispy straying fringe brushing against his cheek this time. “We’ll see.”

“Wonwoo.” Mingyu calling out his name buries him closer into his chest. They’ve decided to luck their chances at movies playing on cable, settle the truce to stop flipping the channels for at least an hour. But with Mingyu so close to him, he loses track of the plot minutes after learning the main character’s name. He’s given up completely because with each languid stroke of Mingyu’s hand up his back, his eyelids lure to close shut. “Do you want to see old pictures of Seoyeon?”

The single question shreds the sleep at his eyes. He sits up on the couch, knees digging into the cushion around Mingyu’s thighs. Hands around Mingyu’s arm, he hauls him to sit up and begin their journey to those pictures, to the ages and milestones of Seoyeon he has never seen before. He bites his lower lip in the strain Mingyu challenges him with, purposely resisting each pull of his body up with a playful, sleepy grin on his lips.

“You’re awake now,” Mingyu teases him with the ends of a low chuckle through.

He spoils himself only with memory gaps that Mingyu allows him to see and fill in for himself, which rarely turn the calendar anywhere farther than five years ago or anywhere close to the years before the divorce. Not many pictures of Seoyeon during her diaper days. No conscious messes of food caused by her lack of teeth or said food strewn all over a booster seat. No previews of the perfect family while he lives in the resolution of it all.

At the long glass table under the television, his hand curls with jitters all over him and down to his fingertips at being able to finally see snapshots of Seoyeon as a newborn or toddler. How much Mingyu will permit him to learn through and yearn through, how much he’s willing to pull back the curtain of the past, he’s not sure of that, but he’s sure he won’t know how to thank Mingyu for merely letting him glimpse through it. With Mingyu crouching in front of the drawer there, he keeps himself close by, close enough to loop his arm into Mingyu’s arm bent on his knee, because the drawer Mingyu opens is the same one that haunted him the last time he stepped into this apartment.

The one deep drawer protects years of memories, years that Wonwoo has been scared of unlocking himself into. Mingyu removes the entire drawer and sets it between them, and his eyes must be searching above _at least_ a dozen of them.

_27.05.2026 - Kim Seoyeon’s 1st Birthday_

_14.10.2027 - Mommy’s First Workshop_

_Japan - Ikebukuro (Spring 2028)_

_Germany - Stuttgart (Summer 2027)_

His curiosity stops short when Mingyu brandishes the smallest photo album he’s ever seen and claims it’s the only one he ever updates anymore. His heart plummets to the bottom of his chest when he hears Mingyu’s voice crack as he explains that “They’re Seoyeon’s first days of school.”

At the broken sound, Wonwoo loosens his arm around Mingyu’s for his hand to rest purchase into his. Forcing Mingyu to go back to memories he wouldn’t want to revisit, to memories he can’t steady his voice just saying so without opening to the first page is something he never wants to force Mingyu into. “We don’t have to do this, Mingyu” is a promise he won’t break. Mingyu runs his hand over his face but fingertips linger at his eyes for a second, as if erasing each tear from his eyes before Wonwoo can catch them. He doesn’t tell Mingyu that he traces each one of them, though, from the corners of his eyes, down his cheeks, clinging onto the underside of his jaw. He doesn’t let a word out that he feels the tears pattering on the skin of his thigh.

“Okay,” he whispers, hushed and hurried over the palm trembling despite the curves of his palm matching up perfectly with Wonwoo’s own. He closes his eyes, and the living room holds them still in the midst of all the memories Mingyu digs out for him. “But you can look at them alone, Wonwoo-” Mingyu coughs the rough out of his throat- “and you don’t have to ask.”

He studies the truth to his words, even though he trusts Mingyu to know he won’t lie about this. But at the same time, the blow to his chest for walking into purposely abandoned memories refuses to patch up and heal. “Are you sure about this?”

Mingyu stares at something inside of the drawer, the hold on his hand loosening for a second, before he nods. “Can you just make sure Seoyeon isn’t around when you do?” Heat radiates off Mingyu’s hand, off his leg sliding against his as he sits down on the floor with him, off his arm when their shoulders lean against one another. A slow unraveling of the grip, from Mingyu’s hand flaring up to perspire, Wonwoo squeezes his palm closer. Once resignation seeks for comfort in his joints, that Wonwoo isn’t willing to let go of his hand because he probably needs this right now, two hands fold over Wonwoo’s. “She doesn’t like seeing these older pictures of her.”

The last part stings Wonwoo.

In his few years of collecting pictures, he solidifies that pictures resurface the heart and soul of the past, captivates the memories long gone from the present and the wishes to recreate them. Pictures are tales to relive those times, even if the people in a picture are the same people coaxing those memories back to life in all the ways they can. He wonders how much time has passed since Seoyeon has last glanced at these pictures of herself in her own accord and without wanting to close the album before she flips to the very last picture, to the very last memory before going into a different one. He wonders how many years Mingyu has no other choice but to surrender himself into a secret just to look back on pictures of his own daughter.

Wonwoo admits that the novelty of these moments in Seoyeon’s life, of seeing the Seoyeon he will never get to grow up with into his own lifetime wins over all his higher judgements. He reminds Mingyu that he doesn’t have to search through these memories from the rubble of the divorce and its aftermath with him if it will reopen too many things all at once. Despite the promise of honesty and the promise of not holding back, he doubts the weak “Okay” once Mingyu shakes his hand off.

When Mingyu disappears to the bedroom behind him, his thoughts are vulnerable with the ghost of Mingyu’s hand against his and with every _Did I do something wrong?_

But he hesitates to peer up to the shuffle of a drop, something light flattening behind him. He turns to Mingyu. He fluffs a pillow from the bedroom and into the corner of the couch. Laying across the cushions, Mingyu settles on his side, enough of an angle to meet Wonwoo’s eyes halfway across the living room. A hint of a smile half-buries into the pillow he hugs to his chest. Wonwoo traces out the pinching ends of his eyes from his smile sinking into the pillow and the band of hair that naturally sweeps across his forehead. As Mingyu closes his eyes, with sleep of a smile gracing his face, everything he gathers back is stark against what he wanted to put back together just a minute ago.

Wonwoo picks up the first photobook Mingyu held onto when they sat down, the leather-bound of Seoyeon’s first days of new school years. It borders within the size of his palm, and he cracks it open to the first picture, to Seoyeon smiling at the front door here. The top of her head barely passes the doorknob, and he loses sight of her hair tucked inside of her light blue winter jacket. It’s one he’s never seen before, never helped her put it on, and perhaps it might be because Seoyeon long outgrew it by the time he met her. Her smile showcases her baby teeth, small between the gaps compared to the ones grown in now, above the white scarf around her neck. The date prints Seoyeon to three years old.

The next page is the first picture of Seoyeon wearing an actual backpack, one that consumes half of her body. Even with her hair tied back to a ponytail, the tips hover past her shoulders. The black pleated skirt leveling lower than her knees and white cardigan, he wonders if there is a change in daycare or school that he’s not aware of. Dark gray straps at her sides remind him of her bedsheets, and he continues onto the next school years.

He makes it to two more pictures when he notices a familiar winter jacket and pair of jeans on her. Sitting on the shoe rack, peeking into the picture, he strokes the protected ink of his own shoes in the hallway, at the first of Seoyeon he’s come to know.

The school year closes to blank sleeves of the photobook for more of Seoyeon’s first days in the future. He places the book between his palms, though, with possibilities of the future, possibilities that one of those school years will begin in New York City. How many more school years will this photobook cherish? Will the front door that she always take pictures in front of change sometime soon? When it’s time, will she smile just the same in those pictures?

He moves onto the closest album his hand lands on in the drawer, to one labeled _Seoyeon tries…_

The first few pages secure Jaewon into solidity in Seoyeon’s life enough that the question of whether if she is Seoyeon’s best friend comes into mind right away--from their matching white tutus two years ago to the baking class from a month ago with flour across Seoyeon’s cheek and a smear of pink on the neck of Jaewon’s apron. Mischievous grins spread on both of their lips, he catches Mingyu’s proud grin, dusted in a slight blur from the back wall of the classroom, as he watches the two of them.

The next page suspends Seoyeon in the field, in mid-kick of the soccer ball and Seungcheol catching up to her right beside her, endearment of a father in Seungcheol’s eyes not too distant from what he sees in Mingyu's eyes. With her hair barely brushing her shoulders and the soccer ball reaching close to her knees, Seoyeon must be four, almost five years old in this picture. He focuses somewhere beyond the border of green fields and brick-colored tracks, and it clears up to Yujin, her white spring dress swept in the wind and her hand clamping down her white sun hat.

Then there’s Seoyeon standing alone on a desolate theater stage, eyes stringing out the lights shining along the ceiling just for her. The picture gives the view farther than her stage presence, to Chan gesturing two thumbs up and the biggest smile on his face from behind the curtain. With this angle, he picks out the small backpack, the exact one he packed jelly juice to keep her stomach satisfied while waiting for the airplane home to Seoul. He guesses this picture must have been before their first trip to New York City.

Jisoo overtakes the next page. A guitar on his lap and Seoyeon standing in front of him, she studies the guitar that’s a tad taller than her. He points at the guitar strings and the next picture reverts to Seoyeon pointing at them instead, completely blind to the eye-crinkling smile across Jisoo’s face. From the smaller backpack across her back and the corner of a diaper poking through the unzipped seam, he guesses this must have been long before Jisoo permanently moved back to Los Angeles, not long after Seoyeon must have turned two years old.

The first picture of Jeonghan situates them somewhere that thrives off in firm handshakes and securing deals, serious meetings and conviction that bankrupts every salesman off the market. The engraved, wooden desk holds not just _Yoon Jeonghan_ embellished into the center nameplate there, but Seoyeon situated on his lap. Seoyeon’s furrowed brows and poking tip of her tongue focus on the ballpoint scrawls of her tiny hand. The ironed lavender dress shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows are a kind of Jeonghan he rarely saw until her birthday.

The little detail swims past his head, right as he’s about to turn the page. He chuckles at the lavender collared shirt that ends above her elbows, so similar to Jeonghan’s outfit here. Just as he thinks the picture is too serious to be true, the next picture captivates his eyes, to Jeonghan and Seoyeon holding up the notepad that’s been occupying her mind too much to care about the camera. Jeonghan’s cheek pressed against hers, his lips are knocked in a proud smile from indecipherable drawings and inky swirls.

At the next picture, his heart drops almost soundless for a second. Jihoon sets Seoyeon on his lap this time, in front of the piano in his studio. With her bangs stopping at a straight line across her forehead, this must have been taken during that time when he and Mingyu wouldn’t think about risking a chance to talk to each other, in fear of hurting Seoyeon.

The next pages after blanche to white.

He turns back to Mingyu behind him again, laminated curls of album pages punctuated now by light snores that sneaked behind his back and the proximity of his hearing. Without a stir or trouble from the album closing up, he packs the albums back into the drawers, lines up the drawer into the vacant square inside the table, and crawls by the couch. His arm bent beside Mingyu, his cheek sinking onto that bend of his arm, the inkling of lying down beside Mingyu passes by, too soon of a thought. Mingyu looks too peaceful to be disturbed.

The slightest strokes at his fingertips shake him out of his afternoon reverie. When he opens his eyes, Mingyu runs the tip of his finger all over his hand, writing a message into his skin that’s too late to consider constructing the characters altogether. He flinches at the sensitive patch between his thumb and forefinger, sends Mingyu’s eyes glancing up in a second, and he relaxes when they slip the quietest smiles over. Upon the hazy outline gracing all around of Mingyu, Mingyu must have plucked his glasses off as he slept.

Mingyu writes a kiss to the center of his palm before resting his hand back on the cushion. But he reaches out to thread their hands together, to bring their palms closer than before.

He smiles once more when Mingyu asks if there is anything he wants to do today or maybe “Is there anywhere you want to go?”

The simple act of grocery shopping in the market hits an odd spot in his heart this time without Seoyeon strolling between them or pushing the cart along with him. The first walkway down the stalls dabbles in “Should we get some for Seoyeon?” at puffed rice, “Does she like to eat this?” for shredded squid, a pout over “It won’t be crispy when we pick her up later” about fresh tempura. Despite his doubts, though, Mingyu falls into “Yes” almost every single time.

Along market stalls, he tries to ignore the vacancy of Mingyu’s hand in his. They never tread their hands anywhere close to each other even while squeezing through the crowd, nor knock knees against one another when they finally sit down and eat inside the shop because they’re sitting across from each other instead. At the lingering drop of spicy broth on the corner of Mingyu’s lips, Wonwoo flattens the napkin in his hand from crossing the line between his half of the table from Mingyu’s half, to sliding the napkin over instead of dabbing the red right off for him.

He’d rather forget about this when they go back to his apartment, forget about Mingyu’s knee shaking under the tabletop and the cold lack of a conversation between them.

Before standing up from the table, he twists the ring in his hand. Mingyu’s eyes seize the glint before shaking his head. But Wonwoo drops his hands, nods his head in defeat, because he understands.

The rest of their one market day fares into a nearly wordless venture to buy vegetables, with Mingyu winning his way with a free extra handful because the grandmas at the stall remember his regular visits with Seoyeon on the weekends, and today throws them off that routine. The “I’m getting this for her” paid with upholding their only request to “Make sure she eats a lot of it.”

In the midst of it all, whenever Mingyu slips so easily into the grandmothers’ fond clutches, whenever Mingyu is shameless or isn't shy at all towards each vendor, he catches himself smiling a fool each time almost too late. Telling himself to stop resides into a common occurrence over each transaction.

When they finally close the doors to Mingyu’s car, a heavy sigh fumes up between them. It pins them to the seats, from sitting in the idle car.

“It feels different from New York” glues itself in Mingyu’s mouth as he stares out to the people walking past the front of his car, lips barely moving as they try to confess it. Wonwoo merely hums, and it hollows out to mentally questioning how Seokmin and Soonyoung, Junhui and Minghao do this every day. “It was kind of exhausting.”

“It was hard not to hold your hand,” escapes Wonwoo’s lips before the thought comes all the way through. He scowls around the words, debates to himself if that sounds clingy, but Mingyu nods to his words.

They let the quiet speak for them. Wonwoo counts all the people roaming by around them, eyes tracing down each person that comes and goes, comes and goes, comes, goes. When foot traffic dwindles down, the numbers saved by the traffic light, the reach out to Mingyu’s hand loosely hanging onto the bottom of the steering wheel is fleeting. He slips his digits through the gaps, surrenders his grasp into a gentle squeeze, before he pulls back and rests his hand back on his lap. It spares enough seconds to capture Mingyu lifting the corner of his lips and a wave of reassurance washing over his eyes.

Half of the car ride home runs on crackles of puffed rice between Seoyeon’s teeth and “I wish I ate this for lunch” when Mingyu pops in the question of how school went for her today. One glance to the side, to Mingyu grinning around a lighthearted sigh that soothes the burden of a sigh from earlier, Wonwoo bites his lip to stifle the laugh. After tales of the library and checking books out, untold stories about cupping a butterfly and Jaewon wanting to sneak it inside the classroom, she reiterates slowly into her musing, “An _entire lunchbox_ of popped rice.”

In the apartment, they abandon the groceries at the dining table before Wonwoo leaves Seoyeon’s backpack in her room. Once Mingyu calls out to her that he’ll cook something and to wait a little bit, she hurries into her room with the desires of changing into pajamas and sorting out her homework because “It feels like a lot today.”

In the meantime, they unwind from their afternoon charade in the bedroom. White sunlight breaching into every centimeter under the four walls, the lines under Mingyu’s eyes etch darker over and over again. Just as Mingyu reaches for the top button of his shirt, he brings Mingyu farther away from the bedroom door, farther away from what Seoyeon’s ears can make out through the walls, and closes it shut behind him.

“Does it make you nervous going out like this?” Wonwoo whispers, gathering their hands together between their breaths, immediate inserts of “I don’t mind” when Mingyu’s hand begins to perspire against his again.

Mingyu lets out an exhale that sinks into their hands, the cracks of their slotted digits together. “You just…” is lost in his eyes lowering, his voice crumbling, and Wonwoo wanting to pick up every shard, “you can never know.”

That night, they agree to leave this afternoon behind them for now, to not let the night grow any darker than it already is across the bed, but Seoyeon swipes her eyes heedful between them, perhaps noticing notice something off in both of them tonight. Nothing can conjure up any brand new “Would you rather” questions nor recharging themselves up into persuading Seoyeon to tell them a bit about her flipbook. Seoyeon seems to pick up on the unsettled quiet between the two of them because instead of a sleepy smile as she slips her arm over Mingyu’s stomach, her lips remain flat and still.

She snaps the silence cursing them all at once, her voice succumbing to that growing desire the three of them can’t contain, “Daddy, I wish it was like this all the time.”

Mingyu closes up the space between their hands not too far from his heart, but it can’t conjure up the sleepy smile. His voice sinks so hollow and distant from the three of them, “Like what, Seoyeon?”

“Like this,” she shifts, barely enough for Wonwoo to distinguish her peeking at him from the corner of her eye without his glasses on. She eases into the contours of Mingyu’s side before she explains any further, “Like Dad doesn’t have to go far away anymore.”

____

After dropping Seoyeon off to school, yesterday afternoon guards the entire apartment and almost forces today to search for some semblance of two days ago for both Mingyu and Wonwoo. Instead of risking time and either of their hearts outside, old documents in the computer bury Mingyu in navigation windows for specific documents, ones from a building he worked on years ago because “Something happened over there today, but the building stayed in place, and they just-” dissolves in the air for a reason, in Mingyu blinking blankly behind the screen as a sheen of white glows on his skin- “I don’t know what they want to do with it, actually.”

“Maybe they want to show off what a brilliant architect you are,” Wonwoo smirks as he picks up a photo album.

He’s resolved himself to dive into one of these albums a day as long as Seoyeon is in school, in a friend’s home, somewhere other than where one wrong step into the living room leads to Wonwoo accidentally forcing unweclomed yesterdays onto her. Paired with Mingyu’s encouragement of learning more of Seoyeon in all the years he’s missed out on, it’s hard for him to not be convinced by the drawer under the picture frames and open up the past that Mingyu wants him to delve into.

He catches Mingyu’s eyes widening above the edge of the computer monitor, above a few clicks and taps on the keyboard. “Or they want to show what _not_ to do the next time it happens.”

The photobook in his hand distorts time and distance between Seoul and Anyang.

On the first pages, one side showcases a picture of Mingyu, shrunken down from the present Mingyu that the soft drink in his hands could stand half his height then. He sits at a dining table outside, a café perhaps, eyes locked up to the camera with his lips pinched together to trap the drink inside his mouth. Just at the opposite page, a baby girl, not much far in age than Mingyu in his baby picture, mimics that same angle as Mingyu with her doe eyes. Instead of the soft drink, she copies his picture with her sippy cup of water, pouting up at the camera with her head slightly tilted down. And instead of the blue-and-white button-up that Mingyu dons, the baby girl's shirt hides behind a yellow bib dotted with a family of brown bears on the bottom.

A quick flip through the next pages of the album, they are all steals of Mingyu as a child and the same baby girl. As he begins to trace out the same glint at Mingyu’s eyes on the girl, he concludes that this is an album that comprises baby pictures of Seoyeon that resemble those of Mingyu. Wonwoo scrutinizes something at the edge of Seoyeon’s booster seat, nearly hidden under the yellow bib, and he turns behind him. He aligns the corner of the dining table in this picture to the dining table just a few steps away from him.

How much has changed between this picture and now, Wonwoo can’t count all the ways.

As much as he knows it might hint that Mingyu has moved on, something continues to haunt a deeper part of him by someone who doesn’t even live here anymore, doesn't even live much in the lives of Mingyu and Seoyeon.

He flips to the next page to what looks like two pictures of Seoyeon back-to-back. Two baby girls with apple hairs reaching high above the crown of their heads, icing smears like blush on their cheeks. Wonwoo glances down at the date from eight years ago on the right side, then to the date thirty-five years ago on the left side.

As if the world follows, Wonwoo feels his heart stop when he realizes one is a picture of Jihye. He blinks hard with their smiles singed behind his eyelids.

The clicks of the mouse and taps of the keyboard dissolve into his name laced in Mingyu’s voice, snapping him back to the spot in front of the glass table and the drawer of picture albums. His mind runs on nothing when it comes to what to say to Mingyu as he walks over and sits down beside him. A smile strings across his face upon seeing the picture of Seoyeon but disappears all at once when he notices the one of Jihye, a complete page of mirrors for each other.

A palm blankets the back of his over the album, and he feels Mingyu close up the album up for him.

“Wonwoo?”

His lips part in an instant for an answer, for a reply that isn’t just _I’m sorry, Mingyu_ , but hangs parted empty with nothing else but that. He knows he’s told Mingyu he’s learning to stop feeling guilty about the past, for not being there or for merely not sending reassurances out when Mingyu and Seoyeon craved for them the most. But with everything he learns, with this new part of Seoyeon and Mingyu that he could have been there for but wasn’t, for each fragment of _just_ Seoyeon’s life that he could have put together by himself, for every memory that wouldn’t be new to him if only he had just took a minute out of his day and _said_ something, he falls, falls, falls into the hole he thought he dug himself out of.

Time waits for them. Mingyu waits for him.

“I know I shouldn’t feel bad about not being there before,” his voice walks along a tightrope, along with his lungs, with his chest, with his whole heart, and the last part dissipates into ghosting the words out, knocks his voice off completely, “but it’s hard sometimes.”

Mingyu’s voice branches off in a low rumble, as if Seoyeon is somewhere in this apartment at this very moment. “I can never blame you for feeling that way,” begins the slide of the album off his lap and onto the floor in front of them, “but I want you to know that Seoyeon and I have been thankful for you since you became a part of our lives this way.”

Wonwoo wishes to respond with something, anything that still isn’t _I’m sorry, Mingyu_ , but only _I’m so sorry, Mingyu_ drinks up his thoughts. Mingyu’s fingertips glide down his face, one second beneath the rim of his glasses and another second on his jaw, and he loses all those words for the touches coursing along his face.

When Wonwoo wakes up a second morning, the ceiling stares at him and he decides to give up on pictures for the day, to lose his other opportunities for the rest of this day, but he forgives himself. He forgives himself after Mingyu asked him what's really there to be sorry for, after Mingyu pulled the sheets up to their shoulders. Upon the chime of the monitor and the click of the front door unlocked, his ears hang onto Seoyeon’s voice dipping into curiosity of what Mingyu has cooked for them this afternoon, if Mingyu has made naengmyeon.

Mingyu’s smile bounces off the walls when he asks her, “How did you know from here?”

The afternoon striking up his words to none, it doesn’t take long into his solitude for the knock on the door. He cranes his head up enough to steal half a door of Seoyeon poking her head in.

The world stops all around them, somehow throws everything from this afternoon and yesterday into a completely different universe the moment their eyes meet, as if those times perished into only bad dreams that felt too real to the touch, to his fears and anxieties. In an instinct, he opens the blanket up with his arm above him. For now, he forgets about these past two afternoons as she skids from the door and dives into the plush, encasing his chest with her arms as much as she can reach.

Under the softness of her pajamas, he kisses her cheek in between wondering how her day at school went. Among hints of her floral shampoo in her hair, he inhales the bright days and recess thrills, the heat all over her back and onto his arms.

He brushes her fringe from her eyes, runs his digits into her hair until their ways stop at her hair tie. He pulls her hair tie off in one gentle motion and watches her black hair ink up paler pillow behind her. “Did you and Jaewon find some more butterflies?”

She relaxes the school day against his outstretched arm over the pillows. Her eyes ignite the summer glow of the bedroom and white sheets as she pipes up about Jaewon’s second attempt of sneaking one into the classroom, the sulk in her bones and in her voice from the pit of her throat when she lets him into a little more of Jaewon freeing the butterfly before stepping through the school door.

Fingertips brushing the season’s rush in her hair, streaming all around despite lying down with him and without the ponytail, he thinks if he has to sacrifice a thousand of his smiles for her, he would go for a million.

Mingyu’s footsteps amplify from the hallway behind her, and he bores straight into Seoyeon’s eyes, feigns the surprise of her father coming as she gives him wide eyes in return. Without a passing thought, he throws the blanket over both of them to hide under. He leans down to her, and he feels the sheets shift as she comes closer, captivating their shared smiles and failures of quieting their snickering when they hear Mingyu go, “Oh, I guess Seoyeon isn’t here.”

When the whole room simmers down to their hushed breathing and nosiness for what the other side of the sheets conceals, her whisper plays into his smile, “Maybe Daddy went back to the kitchen?”

“Maybe.”

Seoyeon peels the sheets off this time, sunshine bathing her entire face until half of it rests in the glow and her eyes blow up, shriek clipped under the smile. He turns behind him, and his heart would have screamed out of his chest at the sight of Mingyu standing directly behind him, staring down the two of them with his lower lip bitten and sucked in, cheeks lightly puffed to keep all his laughter in a single place, in the satisfaction of the unheard.

But it all fails when Seoyeon frees that shriek out and buries her face into his neck.

Everything rummages through for pure joy beneath the remnants of today and yesterday. He tucks Seoyeon under his arm, lets her speak those joys into the crevices of his skin and reminds him that they never left him in the first place.

Mingyu slips into bed beside him, over the blankets this time rather than underneath with them. He breaches his arm far enough to embrace him and Seoyeon both, sneaking a kiss to his shoulder that Seoyeon is too deep under the blankets to notice.

Mingyu suggests eating with them or bringing his bowl here if he’s not up for moving from the bed yet. “How long has it been since you had naengmyeon?”

Seoyeon slithers her way out of his hold and the bedsheets to run out of the room, the skitter in her steps that means she needs to use the bathroom. He follows the back view of her hurrying into the hallway, at the sound of the bathroom door closing and the vents whirring.

The kiss revives on his shoulder once more, and he flips over on the bed. “How are you feeling?”

Wonwoo leans into him, palm pressing over Mingyu’s heart and relaxed heartbeat. He admits his heart is the same as Mingyu’s “after seeing Seoyeon.”

He weighs the fairness of their evening.

Mingyu blocks Wonwoo from tiptoeing anywhere in the kitchen until he sits beside Seoyeon with her English homework. Dining table with flashcards, counter with chopping board and vegetable skins. Seoyeon’s colored pencils from her Disney princess tin lined up like the noodles Mingyu bought from the market yesterday. He still thinks it’s not fair, but he stays put for Seoyeon. Summer sweetness clinging onto her skin, she’s resorted to taking a shower before dinner, and Wonwoo prides in wrapping her hair in a towel before helping her with her homework and making the tower of a towel stay standing on her head to this minute.

“Dad, your face is itchy,” Seoyeon’s voice shrinks as she hides behind the wall of her workbook, builds a flimsy barrier between him and her despite sitting right next to each other at the dining table. “It itches like Daddy’s face.”

“Like Daddy’s face?”

“Sometimes, when you and Daddy kiss me, I want to run away because it makes my face itchy.” She flattens the book across the table and lifts her hand up to the underside of his jaw, to his chin, and he smiles more at her straightening up in her seat for a better examination of his face. Like Mingyu, Seoyeon is warm to the touch and to the eyes. “Right here is _super_ itchy when you kiss me,” she notes as she tickles the curve of his chin. He shakes his head left and right, the underside of his chin itching into her palm, until she squeals into laughter and snaps her hand away. “Can you take it off?”

Wonwoo palms his jaw then where Seoyeon has snapped her hand away. “My chin?”

She nods. Her voice lowers in seriousness as she pierces her gaze on what _and_ where each one of those kisses forces her to alleviate the itch on her palms and her cheeks. “Just the itchy part.”

____

Without his glasses on and his mind fully awake, the bathroom lights pin lasers at his eyes as he struggles to differentiate between the plastic of the razor and the plastic of extra toothbrushes. Mingyu whines his morning about shaving so soon since the last time, groaning that his last time happened to be just before Wonwoo arrived in Seoul.

“Would you rather shave it now or go another day without kissing her?” Wonwoo’s voice dives deep from the early hour still disturbing his voice as he asks that through.

Mingyu’s gasp scratches right behind him, and the grin grows on his face, convinced that it’s enough to get Mingyu to, at least, consider shaving. “I didn’t think of it that way.”

When Mingyu offers to shave Wonwoo’s stubble in return, he thinks there’s nothing much to get rid of, but short bristles he can’t pinpoint without his glasses tell him otherwise. He listens to the hairs on his chin claw into Mingyu’s fingertips, sending him wincing more for the sound than for the morning bathroom lights. Mingyu runs digits at his jaw and his chin with less pressure this time, languid touches there that might convince him into the wrong hours of the day and to sleep some more if only he isn’t standing in front of the bathroom sink and these bright lights.

Mingyu seems to be searching for something in his eyes that he has never caught before. “Do you want to go out for lunch? Just the two of us?” He spreads the shaving cream in a cool layer on his chin and jaw, and he swallows hard at the thought of the market a couple days ago. And as if Mingyu can read the worry from his eyes, “It’s private dining, so we don’t have to worry.”

He picks out the razor-thin concentration at Mingyu’s eyes that sleep can’t contend against. “Did you really?”

Mingyu nods, picks up the razor and starts from the hitch of his jawline. “I reserved us a slot somewhere before you came.”

It’s a few hours before Seoyeon finishes school for the day. Mingyu buttons Wonwoo’s dress shirt from the waist of his pants and all the way to the base of his neck, just as Wonwoo flattens some short-lived wrinkles threatening to rise back up on the thin sweater Mingyu picked out to wear. A deep blue that tapers below his neck, he runs his palms from the edges of Mingyu’s shoulders and down to his chest, reaching down to his waist.

The whole action of preparing to go out together kicks his heart into light flutters in his chest, slowly letting the smile take over his face. He’s never gone out anywhere like this, not with someone he won’t stutter to say and surrender his heart to and for. It’s his first time doing something like this, with most of his outings in the past few years of his life always accompanied by someone fresh from a shift at the bridal shop or an appointment from his office. He wonders if they can do this again or even more in New York City.

When Wonwoo speculates why they can’t just walk in with jeans and a t-shirt, like all the other places they venture into, Mingyu chuckles into the white light of summer. The deep yet lighthearted sound of Mingyu, the mere sight of him freezes all motion of his hands just to indulge in the sound, in the moment.

Over flicking Mingyu’s stray strands in place, he picks up the details of the high-end establishment that opened just last year. It’s a place Mingyu has been wanting to try and booked reservations the moment they decided on the dates that Wonwoo would be here.

Wonwoo tries to bury the excitement deep, but it surfaces into the bashful smile from Mingyu’s lips and onto his.

The restaurant is a name Wonwoo’s tongue can’t twist itself into correct pronunciation, whether it’s in his native or English tongue.

“It’s French, I think?” Mingyu only guesses, scratching his head. “All I know is that I can’t speak the language.”

Mingyu’s reserved a room on the second floor, one where the wall lives off the city view and nothing more. Everything thrives off sleek black--from smooth walls, the table that might be made of stone, two placemats each cornered by a water cup _and_ a wine glass, chopsticks pointing towards the seat and lined up in a _V_. The line of light above them, circumnavigating the entire room Mingyu booked, refracts off everything here.

His lips part to say something that makes the air less quiet with just his awe at the whole place, but all that he can muster out at the door is a bare whisper, “Thank you, Mingyu.”

Mingyu simply smiles at him as he steps forward and hikes his chair back, gestures him sit down before he does. He tries to pick apart why the smile feels different this time.

From the passenger’s seat, Wonwoo taps Seokmin’s name on Mingyu’s phone to invite him over to the apartment, that they will be the ones to pick Seoyeon up from school again. Once the “I’ll see you there” hangs the call up, over the glance to the backseats of the car, Wonwoo is the one to close the car door behind him and return with Seoyeon’s hand in his and the question about Seoyeon’s day at school.

Seoyeon rifts the humming of radio play to tell him about heading to the garden today for science, “and this boy threw a worm in the air and it went on Jaewon’s shoulder.” His lips twist at the idea of dirt specks and the squirming string of brown life so close to the ends of her bob cut. “Jaewon cried, so I took the worm off.”

Genuine curiosity winds up Mingyu’s voice in the way his voice slows down but rises in pitch with his raised eyebrows. “Where did you put it after, Seoyeon?”

The rearview mirror glints in the pride of her smirk. “I threw it at the boy.”

“ _Seoyeon,”_ Mingyu warns, eyes stern at the mirror when he stops at a red light. This strict side has yet to come to Wonwoo until now; he doesn’t know what to make of it.

She melts into a beam that the two of them keep close, nothing of pride. “I’m kidding.” He watches Mingyu’s tense lips give in to her truth, but remnants of his brows still linger. “I put it back to the dirt and told Jaewon it won’t hurt her.”

Catching up on Seokmin’s life has been limiting during Seoyeon’s birthday, and it seems natural that he sits on the couch with the younger. Upon the sunlight bouncing off Seokmin's white scrubs and onto the walls, Wonwoo can’t help but ask how Seokmin manages to keep his scrubs clean throughout the day.

“It’s not all white,” Seokmin corrects him. He lifts the pocket of his scrubs, points out the two black circles connected with a straight line. Wonwoo catches onto his smile as he traces out the shapes. “The kids there love Baymax.”

He risks in the question about the adoption process so far--how it’s going along and how much anything is in his and Soonyoung’s favors. He doesn’t let his heart dampen when Seokmin admits that it’s still hard and a long way to go, if they have any at all, but giving up never has a place on their way there. He refuses his heart to dampen because at the end of his answer, there’s a hint of a smile on Seokmin’s face when he admits that it might not happen in Korea because Hyuk doesn’t live in Korea; Hyuk is in Jisoo’s side of the world. And he’s thankful for the sigh of relief in his heart that there’s still something for the two of them.

But then Seokmin’s hint of a smile grows as he returns the same question back to him, of how he has been lately since “You had big things happen, too.”

The sudden shift towards him leaves his heart beating lightly and quickly in his chest, the heat rushing to his ears, but not as much as those times before. Perhaps it’s because the question frames itself in the comforts of Mingyu’s home, not too far from neither Mingyu nor Seoyeon. “Everything feels kind of different.”

“What?” he persists, suspicions rising at what he’s about to say next as he raises his eyebrows at him. “Being engaged to Mingyu or being Seoyeon’s dad?”

The blush breaches all over his cheeks and his neck, and his face falls into his hands to hide handing over Seokmin’s satisfaction so easily. Wonwoo tells himself that life has given him something, though it might not be exactly what the three of them are looking for, but it’s close enough for now. It’s enough right now. When he comes back up, he seals his palms to his face, a futile attempt to gather all the heat from his cheeks and out of his skin.

But from the couch, Wonwoo glances at Mingyu in the kitchen, scooping black bean sauce into five bowls of noodles. Then his eyes chart over to Seoyeon at the dining table, poking her thumb into each of her fingers and whispering something until she drops her palm to find the pencil and write something on her workbook. He wants to avoid Seokmin’s eyes and the teasing arches of his eyebrows, but his eyes fall upon the pictures under the television again, to an unframed one of the three of them in Christmas at the park.

“Everything,” Wonwoo replies low, and he can’t help but confess that he loves both and more.

When the vague shadow of Soonyoung crosses the monitor by the door, Seoyeon pushes her chair back and hurries to the front before any of them, before even Soonyoung’s own husband pushes his chair back or finishes his bite. Of all, Seokmin gathers more bits of meat into the center of his bowl. Upon the click of the door open, the dining table stills in Soonyoung’s gasp, reduces the commotion in the whole apartment as the three of them talk with their eyes over the dining table of what they think is going on. Mingyu’s crooked lift of his eyebrow in question, Wonwoo’s narrow glance from Mingyu to Seokmin, and Seokmin indulging himself in second and third bites.

A moment after, Soonyoung comes into view, into the kitchen with Seoyeon across his back and her arms slinging around his shoulders. Her cheek squished onto the back of his shoulder buds her eyes into closing, and he would have thought it’s all because she’s hugging Soonyoung so close if it weren’t both of her eyes shut. She smiles into a dream against his back. Soonyoung hops to send her into a more comfortable and stable position along his back until Mingyu reminds her that she shouldn’t be on his back for too long, since “Your Uncle Soonyoung spends the whole day exercising.”

“I’m glad the restaurant is still open,” Soonyoung jokes once he sets Seoyeon down, but not without a kiss to his cheek and one to her forehead in return. The single joke sends Mingyu lightly slapping him on the shoulder.

But despite more people around the dining table than usual, no one burns the conversation alone. A mix of Seoyeon’s day at school and her classmates and Soonyoung mumbling about missing Mingyu’s cooking now that he doesn’t pick Seoyeon up anymore, now that more students have enrolled in his taekwondo studio. Mingyu noting about his eyes feeling less strained lately and perhaps, it might just be because Wonwoo is home. Seokmin’s heavy day on the floor easing the moment Wonwoo called him earlier. Wonwoo placing his chopsticks back on the table as he describes through the new places he’s met in New York City and the wedding invitations piling on his desk and waiting for him to open and respond to them. The shared but bashful smile sneaking from Wonwoo’s lips and onto Mingyu’s when Soonyoung teases about one of those weddings being theirs someday.

He doesn’t feel like the conversation is close to running dry, not at all. He feels like it’s just getting started.

They don’t wake Seoyeon up when they discover her asleep in her bed already, her sheets all under her and nothing covering her. They let her be on her own bed tonight because neither of them believe they can make it to the bedroom with Seoyeon in either one of their arms and without waking her up along the way.

So they settle day with the two of them, and the night wades down to a tightness in his chest and the grip on his heart. Wonwoo flattens across the bed, arms outstretched around him in the dark. The only sound keeping him company are the squeaks of the sink shut and Mingyu’s humming over the air vents in the bathroom.

The weight of what the future will mean to the three of them coaxes him down a path he has never brought up to Mingyu before, has never really considered it when he was the one to run head-first into what they have now and what more they can become of. The flash of Mingyu’s scolding with merely her name, nothing at his ears but everything is there for his eyes, the strict voice Mingyu sheds off once Seoyeon tells the actuality of her actions, Wonwoo realizes that he doesn’t carry the guts to look at Seoyeon the same way Mingyu did earlier, to sharpen his voice at the hint of Seoyeon misbehaving. He understands the good intentions in doing so, the discipline and ensuring she grows up in the best way Mingyu can for her. He understands Mingyu is only doing it to help Seoyeon build herself later on, but he doesn’t even know where to begin in the shades of discipline and where he stands at all with it.

The door closing behind Mingyu brings him back to reality. He makes out Mingyu scratching the inside of his shirt from summertime’s itch, and the grip sinks down on him even more.

“Mingyu,” he croaks, fingers curling into the bedsheets. The bed dips next to him, but he doesn’t turn over to that side, not even when Mingyu lays his head on his arm and melts into the contours of his side. A hand drums over the already drumming beat of his heart, rackets louder in his chest when he admits, “I’ve never thought about it before until today, but I don’t know how to raise a child.” He traces out the smoothness of moonlight on the ceiling. The thought sends streaks of light at his eyes. “I’m scared of hurting Seoyeon again,” his voice shatters, and he picks out the streaks of moonlight jag over his vision are due to the tears in his eyes. He lets his thoughts wander down that path with Mingyu in-step beside him. “I really did picture you and Seoyeon in my future, but I didn’t think a lot about raising her. What if I do everything wrong, Mingyu?”

“You do so much for Seoyeon already,” Mingyu whispers, brushing his fingertips under his eyes, erasing the tears off there, but they continue rolling down his cheeks. “We’re both learning.”

A palm drapes across his cheek, but he doesn’t move still. He gasps before he can succumb into a sob. “Mingyu, I’m just so... _terrified_ of doing something wrong and Seoyeon will never forgive me for it.”

And perhaps he doesn’t want any words right now as he moves on the bed until he loses his voice against Mingyu’s neck. Arms around his shoulders, Mingyu’s digits through his hair, he lets the night capture him in emptying out his tears there.

____

“Seoyeon, go inside,” tight in Mingyu’s voice projected from the monitor.

He freezes up at the sound of the door clicking open, haste steps stumbling in, before closing just as quickly. But instead of hearing Mingyu’s voice echo in the apartment, announcing that he’s home, that Seoyeon’s home with him, the same tone from the monitor stings his ears, overlaid by a second voice he can’t recognize from anywhere in his memories with Mingyu and Seoyeon.

An elderly woman’s voice rings into the apartment and after wiping his hands on the towel and clicking the stove off, he walks over to the door, only to find Seoyeon standing there, facing the knob. Shoes still tied at her feet, backpack by the shoe rack, she stills and he’s afraid to go up to her, to stir something in her. He wants to reach out to her and tell her to change her clothes and get ready to eat. He wants to hold her hand and guide her away from the door, to listen to her talk about her school today if it means it will ease her heart and Mingyu’s heart.

Then he hears it, an aimed question cut off by the distance of the hallway outside, but Wonwoo doesn’t need the whole thing to know why Seoyeon refuses to move beyond the two steps in front of the door. The elderly woman’s voice grasping onto the words of “Seoyeon’s mom” beads the tears wordlessly down Seoyeon’s face, and Wonwoo tells himself not to panic when he notices Seoyeon’s shoulders trembling. She presses her eyes with the corners of her wrists, kicking her shoes off and nudging them as close to the shoe rack as she can, before running away from the door, past Wonwoo, as if she knew he’s been standing there this whole time.

He hears Mingyu’s voice and futile attempts punctuated with the woman’s “Your wife.”

A door in the apartment shuts behind him, but his heart would never be ready to hear her sob beyond it. He steps up to the monitor and jabs buttons just to get the monitor to finally mute itself before hurrying to Seoyeon’s room. He knocks on her door, frantic from how he would usually knock.

A muffled whimper pulls through the door, and he opens it to Seoyeon curled up on her side, on the floor, palms sealing her ears doing nothing to stop her cries. He drops down to his knees and gathers her in his arms, brings a palm to her face to wipe the tears dry. He slowly slips his fingertips under her palms to uncover her ears, but she doesn’t relent.

Wonwoo gives in, though, and lets her keep her palms pressed there, when her cries become an unanswered prayer of “I don’t want to hear it” scratching her throat raw.

He remembers the uncertainty of New York City or Seoul, how one of the reasons why Mingyu would rather not continue their lives in Seoul is because of the aunts on their apartment floor demanding them for something they can’t give or even talk about without costing them a cry or some pain. He remembers Mingyu admitting that he can’t stand anyone asking Seoyeon about her mother. With Seoyeon in his arms, sobs uncontrollable with the plea to not hear anything anymore, he now understands why.

Eventually, he feels her relaxing under his arms. She slips her palms from her ears to hold onto his arm across her, fingerprints on his skin sticky with sweat and tears as he finally reaches up to cup her face.

“I turned the monitor off, Seoyeon,” Wonwoo whispers, trying not to let his voice shake. “We can’t hear them anymore.”

One by one, he unclips the hairpins that stop her fringe from getting to her eyes, sets them down one by one on the playmat by his feet. He holds her gently across his arms, occasionally running his fingers through her hair, down her cheek to wipe the tears off, pat the tears with his fingertips.

When he lies her down across the playmat and settles right beside her, she hiccups into an inhale and curls up closer into his chest. Her lips part, stuck from the tears, syllables lost in his ears and into his shirt, but amidst the lulling pats across her back, he comforts her that she doesn’t have to talk right now. He waits for her breathing to level off, lets her hold onto his arm for as long as she needs to, to cough out the last of her cries.

When her door finally opens, he looks up to exhaustion weighing Mingyu’s eyes down and nowhere above the floor. Seoyeon doesn’t flinch as Mingyu lies down behind him on the playmat, the taper of his shoulder pinning onto Mingyu’s chest. He runs off with Mingyu’s words instead and asks if she wants to talk about it now that Mingyu is here with them, too.

But she shakes her head, forehead digging into his chest.

He asks if she wants to eat right now, but she shakes her head.

But when he asks if she wants to be alone, she whimpers, “A little bit.”

He loosens his arm she holds onto, but he doesn't rush her when she hesitates to release his arm go. Mingyu sits up and gathers her hair pins on the floor, sets them on the desk, and reminds her that they’re both here if she wants to talk. Seoyeon sits up into a nod just as Mingyu opens his arms up to her, and she falls right in without missing a second.

Mingyu whispers an “I’m so sorry, Seoyeon” into the crown of her head that has her shaking her head against him, her face pressing deeper into his shoulder and knees buckling to settle onto his lap.

The after-school meal remains a heavy one with the empty spot between them, with the untouched bowl of rice, utensils, glass of water there for their daughter. He doesn’t bring anything up, not when above the bowl and at every bite, Mingyu manages to barely blink the tears dry every time. Part of him wants to tell Mingyu to forgive the tear to fall, to not hold back, but with Seoyeon not so far away again, he’s not sure how long they have to inhale their sorrows from her sight. They’re halfway through eating when they hear the door open. Wonwoo watches her sulk to the bathroom, but Mingyu doesn’t even chance his eyes up.

When Seoyeon drags herself to the dining table, voice cracking as she thanks both of them for cooking, Wonwoo wishes it doesn't have to this way. She struggles to swallow hard first bite because some of her cries linger in her throat, still has her hitching breath sometimes.

He lifts his hand up, moves her hair plastered on her face from the tears, and tells her that she doesn’t have to force herself to eat, that she can eat later when she wants to.

She frowns, tear sliding down her cheek. “I’m hungry,” she whimpers. He tries to smile for her but when she says she wants to sleep in her room tonight, he can’t ignore Mingyu’s face dropping in disappointment, but he agrees to it.

The bed spans too empty for two, but it’s almost suffocating trying to hold Mingyu without letting his sobs spill too loud over the wall.

“I couldn’t protect her,” Mingyu’s whisper prints frail onto the column of his neck, and he lets Mingyu cry onto his shoulder. “What if she hates me again?”

“How can Seoyeon hate you, Mingyu? She hugged you right away when you let her. And before that, she stood behind the door like she was waiting for you to come in.” Wonwoo brushes the hair out of his face, the tears sticking them onto his forehead. “Let’s give her some time, and I’ll talk to her tomorrow.”

Mingyu takes in a sharp breath, and his own eyes begin to sting, his shoulders tremble at the memory of Seoyeon sobbing in his arms earlier, the falter of his breath. Before he knows it, he’s sobbing into Mingyu, pulling him closer to him and wishing he went with them this time instead of staying home. He could have helped them this time, could have protected them, and maybe none of this would have happened in the first place.

“Wonwoo,” Mingyu rasps out in the dark, and the next part stumbles in the syllables and he would wish for Mingyu to slow down if only he doesn't mean stopping his thoughts, “if handling this divorce stuff is overwhelming or even if it makes you the tiniest bit anxious or anything, _please_ tell me. It's something you probably don’t see a lot. I mean, your job is to bring people together, not watch their relationships fall apart, and your parents are still together, and I’m the only one divorced one out of the guys, so I understand if you’re not used to it and it can get too much. It’s-I...all I ask is that you let me know, and I will never get mad at you because it _is_ heavy, it _is_ a lot.”

“I don’t-” Wonwoo thinks of those times apart where they throw a thought about Jihye and how they managed to get through them all so far- “I don’t know, I’ve always thought I wanted to be there for both of you through this.” Mingyu is looking at him with a frown, a tough swallow that transfix into a faint smile that doesn’t last long. The faint smile cracks, and Mingyu is silencing his sobs behind his hand again.

They surrender to three in the morning. They’ve spent time simply wanting for sleep to take them to a brand new day and momentarily forget this all. In the midst of Mingyu closing his eyes and Wonwoo’s fingertips tracing along his face, Mingyu manages to find solace in it and trill the night with shallow snores. But he’s sure that when seven o’clock strikes, they probably won’t be able to muster enough energy to last them the whole day, especially when most of it might just be for trying not to cry in front of Seoyeon. Wonwoo's thoughts beat him down a thin veil of sleep.

“You do so much for Seoyeon, too,” he tells Mingyu over those shallow snores, the blur of the night, the wish of pushing this day all behind them, the three of them. “More than anyone else in this world, Mingyu.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for still sticking by this fic! i hope you and those you treasure are safe and healthy!
> 
> i've pretty much dropped from the face of social media so here are my [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/miniinfinity) and [write.as](https://write.as/miniinfinity/)

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! if you like to scream at me, i'm always at [tumblr](http://seokmins-thighs.tumblr.com), [twitter](https://twitter.com/_miniinfinity), or [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/miniinfinity)


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